Rome’s Azure Sky | This Boy | Single review

Rome’s Azure Sky: This Boy

(Sprezzatura Records)

Stream | DL

Out Now

Roxanne Fontana once again delves back into the early 60’s archives to inspire the release of the debut single for her new band, Rome’s Azure Sky. This time it’s a re-imagining of The Beatles classic This Boy which draws out some glorious harmonies, rekindling the wonderful spirit of those evolutionary times in our musical heritage.

Rome’s Azure Sky is a band fronted by the mother and daughter duo of singer/ songwriter Roxanne Fontana and multi-instrumentalist/singer Suki Marie. Suki has already made history recently by being the first person with Down’s Syndrome to release a record as a singer and musician. The band’s name is taken from a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley and alludes to the two fronting members, Roxanne And Suki, who reside in England with Italian citizenship. Essentially it’s a side project from Roxanne’s own solo career to cater for a long-standing desire to record a version of The Beatles song, This Boy.

First released by The Beatles as the b-side to ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’, This Boy was what Paul McCartney described as a hotel bedroom song, referencing the informal sessions where so many classic songs were first created. This Boy combines the Beatles love of the doo-wop sound of the ’50s with the incredible influence that Smokey Robinson and The Miracles had on John Lennon who undoubtedly had the major stake in writing the song. As Lennon himself explained, it was “Just my attempt at writing one of those three-part harmony Smokey Robinson songs.” So, it comes as no surprise for Roxanne Fontana to cover a song like this, being an artist who draws such a strong influence from the styles and sounds from the 60’s.

Rome’s Azure Sky’s version of This Boy once again showcases Roxanne’s natural talent in re-imagining such songs with a 21st century twist to the arrangement, whilst preserving the beautiful and uplifting harmonies and the overall blueprint that the song established which influenced so many bands who followed that creative peak in the early 60’s. The Beatles Day celebrations in Hastings in April proved to be the perfect venue to showcase the first public performance of the song.

One issue faced by Roxanne was in the male-orientated narrative being sung by a female. But Roxanne rose to this challenge as she explains, “The song is wholly gender-based, obviously including the title. It would have been sacrilegious to Beatles fans, including me, to change the song to ‘This Girl’. So I am singing the song as an outside observer to the girl, and the words are now literal. ‘My love’, which Lennon is meaning as a woman that he has an emotional ownership of, becomes ‘your love’, as in the girl’s affection. And by doing what I’ve done, it also makes sense in the bridge, luckily.”

Alongside Roxanne, Suki Marie provides backing vocals and acoustic piano, Glenn Burgos is on guitar, Tom O’Driscoll on acoustic guitar, Spencer Hannabus plays bass, and Steve Hands on drums. Further recording sessions will follow leading up to the release of Roxanne’s new solo album, Some Have Fun, due in August 2024, the follow up to Phantasmagorgy from 2022.

You can stream/download the single here or here.

You can find Roxanne Fontana on Facebook, Instagram and her website.

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All words by Ian Corbridge. You can find more of his writing at his author profile.