The greatest female vocal performance ever recorded is of course the late Lorraine Ellison’s "Stay With Me", which would be celebrating its 50th birthday this year if recordings weren’t inanimate objects incapable of celebration. From the first exquisite notes Ellison moans, the listener knows he’s in the presence of genius. As the song progresses, he is sure that he has never heard romantic desperation more vividly expressed by a musician — and isn’t most popular music about exactly that? I have often written that it sounds as though Ellison was receiving open-heart surgery without an anaesthetic. You won’t doubt for a millisecond that she means every syllable.
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