Each week we invite music lovers to share seven songs that have shaped their life. This week, we speak to the award-winning musician Ria Hall. Her new album Manawa Wera is out now.
1. I Love the Lord, He Heard My Cry - Someday We'll All Be Free - Donny Hathaway
The segue into these two songs is the most profound and beautifuI experience. It speaks to me on all levels, it really is a spiritual experience that allows you to transcend space and time. There's nothing I don't love about these pieces of music. His innate sense of musicianship and the way he effortlessly and skilfully plays the piano, coupled with the incredible politically charged, yet necessary, lyrics about the black experience in America, encouraging his people to stay on course and in strength regardless of the fear and oppression. And then, of course, his magical velvet voice, which is the absolute highlight. There is no singer-songwriter-composer-arranger today in my opinion who comes close. He really was perfection in every single sense of the word. Gone too soon.
2. Grandma's hands - Bill Withers
A simple song about a little old lady who raised Bill - his grandmother. What I love about this song is that I can hear his church upbringing in the chords and feel - a guttural and real account of his upbringing and the adoration he had for her. He's such a prolific songwriter that you can see everything his grandmother is doing playing out in your head when he sings. It makes me think of my own grandmothers, who I had the pleasure of spending lots of time with growing up in Tauranga. I can see my nanny Heni out in her garden with her sunhat on, tending to her flowers, and my little nan Olly in her kitchen baking apple and rhubarb crumble.
