There are few singers you can talk of in the same breath as Katie Melua, Norah Jones and Eva Cassidy without the comparison seeming ludicrous.
Jessica Sweetman is one of them.
As unknown now as Katie Melua was before she got her break – and no less talented – Jessica Sweetman’s name 
will soon be tripping off our tongues as easily as her music will slip from our iPods to our ears. We can be forgiven for not having heard of her. Unless, that is, we happen to be regulars at one or two Pizza Expresses in the West Midlands where this singer-songwriter performs, or we pop into one of the pubs whose landlords have had the foresight to book her while they can still afford to do so without taking out a second mortgage on the premises.
For although Jessica sings in pubs, she’s not a pub singer. And neither is she a pizza parlour performer.
Some of the pub regulars may carry on with their conversation for now, and a few of the pizza lovers may show more interest in the choice of toppings than the topping performances she’s giving, but one day they’ll be kicking themselves for failing to give her their undivided attention when she was a few feet away from them and happy to talk, rather than surrounded by security men holding back the surging crowd as she wows them at the new Wembley Stadium.
Jessica is about to do her first gig in central London – the opening night of a restaurant. Record producers will be in the audience, and the chances of Jessica remaining an unknown by the end of the evening are about as likely as Stevie Wonder coming last in a karaoke contest.
Those producers are in for a treat.
For Jessica has been billed, variously and inadequately, as a Nora Jones tribute act, a Katie Melua soundalike, a jazz singer, and a successor to Eva Cassidy.
Although she can be any or all of those things – which is quite an achievement in itself – her strength is that she’s an original. Not the next Norah Jones, but the first Jessica Sweetman.
Yes, she can sing Norah’s, Katie’s and Eva’s songs as masterfully as they can themselves, but she has the rare ability to take a well-known song and make it her own.
She demonstrated that to the surprise of a pub full of people when she suddenly burst into an astonishingly soulful version of Jolene, the Dolly Parton song – possibly the last thing anyone present expected her to sing, and arguably the most interesting performance of the night.
To transform a country and western classic into pure soul showed courage, creativity, and a sense of adventure – a gamble that paid off.
Like Katie Melua, Norah Jones and Eva Cassidy before her, Jessica Sweetman is not easy to pigeonhole. Probably on account of the variety of songs her talents stretch to.
Her voice suits jazz, but it also suits soul, ballads, and good old-fashioned love songs. W H Smith would simply file her under Easy Listening – a category that used to be a ghetto but is now applied to just about any non-rocker or non-rapper who can sing, likes melody, and wouldn’t be rendered completely useless as a performer if a power surge knocked out the electronics.
Jessica has a purry, sensual voice, mature when it needs to be but still containing traces of a girlish quality that will endear her to audiences.
Don’t be surprised, either, if Jessica suddenly comes out with a cracking rendition of S-S-S-Single Bed – a song that Noosha Fox made famous but which could almost have been written with Jessica’s voice in mind.
The one category that Jessica Sweetman does fit into is a very exclusive one indeed. It doesn’t have a name, but you only belong in that category if your singing can send a shiver down listeners’ spines.
That takes some doing when you’ve only just turned 18, but Jessica’s been a member of that club for years.
Some prescient person in her home town of Sutton Coldfield encouraged her to take part in a talent competition. She entered, won, and kept on winning them – broadening her experience via a worship band at a Baptist church, a school radio station, and an open-mike evening at a folk festival.
Her first real break came at the Pizza Express in Sutton. “They had a jazz band playing and I asked how I could get a gig there,” Jessica recalls. “To my amazement, the band let me do a 10-minute gig as part of their set.”
Her public address system packed up just before she was due to go on stage at a second Pizza Express in Stourbridge. None of the local pubs had a spare system she could borrow. To Jessica’s surprise and relief, a heavy rocker who’d heard her sing before believed in her so much that he went all the way home, picked up his own huge PA system, and lent it to her for the evening.
Word spread, and Jessica was invited to audition at The Belfry, home of the Ryder Cup golf tournament. A prestigious venue that would have been just down the road if Jessica hadn’t just moved down to Cornwall with her family.
“We drove for four hours to Birmingham, did the half-hour audition, then drove four hours back,” says Jessica. “But they booked me, and I now perform there monthly.”
She won’t tell you herself, but the venue is booked out every time she plays there. But that’s part of the charm of Jessica Sweetman. Like X Factor winner Leona, she really doesn’t have the faintest idea how good she really is. And that’s very attractive to fans and audiences.
“When I’m singing on stage, I’m at my most comfortable ever. I feel more nervous when I come off! I’m always excited about it; I always live it. I never think ‘Oh, I’ve got to go to work tonight.’.”
Jessica’s manager is also her father, Mark. A songwriter himself, he’s passed on more than just his genes.
“My Dad told me how to write a song, how to play the guitar, how to get the gigs. He introduced me to a lot of music – jazz, rock, country, and pop – which has made me love music even more.
“I love a variety of music. Sometimes I do all this, then I put on a bit of 50 Cent.”
Mike Batt, the legendary singer-songwriter who made his name with Remember You’re A Womble and went on to write Bright Eyes and The Closest Thing To Crazy, struck gold when he discovered Katie Melua.
And someone, somewhere, is about to have the same once-in-a-professional-lifetime luck when they discover Jessica Sweetman.
Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!
PS: Jessica's just launched her website at www.jessicasweetman.com where you can hear her incredible voice. And remember: you heard about her here. First.
