Released once again in advance of International Women's Day, The Sisterhood 2 is a worthy successor to Sarah Jane Morris and Tony Rémy's celebrated 2024 album. It presents 11 more luminous portraits of female singer-songwriters – artists Morris calls her "essential lodestars" – each chosen for their excellence and originality, dual role as writer and interpreter, and artistic courage.
With her fabulously rich timbral quality and storytelling gift, Morris inhabits each subject while remaining unmistakably herself. In co-writer, co-producer and guitarist Rémy she has found the ideal creative foil. Album opener "Longing To Be Free" pays tribute to Peggy Seeger's life of musical activism, its extended outro lingering like a rallying cry. Opening with delicately layered, fingerpicked guitars and fiddle, the poignant "Oh Mother My Mother" honours Sinéad O'Connor by tapping into the mythological, transformative world of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Written for Tracy Chapman, "I Can Hear Jesus Weeping" delivers a melodically beautiful but biting rebuke of society's abandonment of the vulnerable.
"Love Wit and Stardust" captures Dolly Parton's generous spirit with a disarmingly funky chorus, while "Always Both and Never" conjures Joan Baez's world with richly layered guitars and Morris's voice doubled at the octave – heroism and hedonism in perfect tension. Bonnie Raitt's groove-driven tribute “Sweet Mama Raitt” gives Rémy room for a blazing solo, and Morris demonstrates rare interpretative subtlety in the Joan Armatrading offering, "Let Only Love Remain".
The wonderful “Crazy Angel” for Patti Smith possesses a pleasing grittiness, while the sepulchral funk of “Also Known As Etta James” (for Etta James) is a delicious homage to Janis Joplin’s role model and Bonnie Rait’s idol. The album closes magnificently with "The Dignity of Love" for Janis Ian, a Bacharach-rich, brass-and-strings celebration of love in all its forms. A fabulous collection which pulls you in a myriad of emotional directions.
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