Review: VIVIAN GREEN Blends Styles Beautifully at City Winery

Vivian Green’s much anticipated return to New York allowed her to showcase her incredible talent and fan favorite songs from her seven studio albums, including the most recent, Love Absolute, released in November of 2020. Her music, in many ways a poppy R&B, strikes an intense balance between the singer’s soulful voice and the upbeat tone of the band behind her. Her lyrics follow both the classic blues arc and the almost complete opposite, filled by love with inspiration and happiness, with moments like “Just you and me, now that it’s all said and done...your love is sweeter, better greater” from the song “Your Love is Better than Anything Else.”

The two sides and styles that Green combines were the true theme of a memorable show. Both sides of Green touched a similar thread to some of the classics her backup singers would later sing, as she allowed her friends to take center stage during a long set that featured the beauty of Green’s voice. Her meldinging of styles allowed her to begin the night as the bougie supper club entertainment with a powerful voice, until she transferred, toward the end of the show, into becoming the life of an upbeat, up-tempo party. Green and her band certainly knew how to host, and her audience followed along, singing the words to her songs with her, as she often dramatically gestured to them during popular choruses.

Many things make Vivian Green unique when it comes to joining the many performers who grace New York stages, in particular, her prolific original lyrics that she’s released over two decades. On the flip side, there are similarities, too, as she cut away between songs to share short stories of what inspired her music, as well as why she enjoys the city of New York. However, she didn’t dwell too long between songs and, instead, relied on her beautiful voice and the excitement of her fans to guide her onward from one to the next, never putting the brakes on the fun. She took it “all the way back to the beginning” for the die-hard fans, who seemed to make up at least half the crowd, singing maybe the best example of Green’s beautiful mixture of style with the 2009 song from the album A Love Story, “Emotional Rollercoaster.” When she began, “Last night I cried, tossed and turned,” many in the crowd stood to sing along. Other songs had similar melancholic, bluesy lines like “I tried to love you like you love me...I should have left before it got complicated,” beside songs where Green confessed her love in upbeat, soulful tones, “Time is sure to prove I will always be good to you.”

This was the vibe of Vivian Green, and the crowd went with her through the ups and downs of her well-blended show of uptempo and slower ballad-esque hits. Her vibe was matched by her backup singers, Sharon Hill and Laura Lee, when they gave Green a break from her powerful belting to partly steal the show. Hill and Lee competed in a brief “battle of the generations,” singing the classics that they held dearest to heart, in an effort to win over the crowd. When it was later announced a tie, I would have to agree that both Hill and Lee had not only made strong selections but had sung them beautifully. Lee’s performances of Alicia Keys’s “If I Ain’t Got You” and Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” were equal parts gutsy and deserving of special recognition. Cast alongside the intensity of Chaka Khan’s “Through the Fire,” excellently performed with equal depth to her voice, and perhaps an extra touch of showmanship, Hill’s performance represented perhaps the other half of Green.

Ultimately, Green’s beautiful voice got the crowd pumped more than anything, and by the end of the June 30th late show, no one wanted to leave. Vivian Green watched from the corner of the stage as her encore became a sing-along dance party that stretched deeper into the night.

Visit the City Winery website HERE to find other great shows to see.

THIS is the Vivian Green website.