For lovers of purposed and conceptual soul music aching for a fresh talent they can wrap their hearts and minds around, Abby Dobson is the answer they have been waiting on. The singer-songwriter's offerings are fathoms deep celebrations of saturation over surface - deeply penetrating works of lyrical introspection, soul-plumbing vocal explorations and instrumental accompaniment drenched in moods of midnight. The lady draws heavily from the spectrum of music, swirling jazz, reggae, soul, country, gospel, classical, folk and blues into rich aural portraiture that speaks eloquently to the spirit. For women especially, hers is a voice that echoes pleasures and pains with both a resonance for the ages and insights beyond her years. Literate, passionate and defiant of category, Abby Dobson is an all-natural original whose dedication, patience and focus on her figurative sparrow are about to surrender to her the most fabulous of happy endings. Depending on your perspective, Abby Dobson's spellbinding debut either took three years to record, mix and master, was 10-years-in-the-making artistically, or is the culmination of one Black woman's life lessons on love - love of a man and, ultimately, love of self. Titled Sleeping Beauty: You Are the One You Have Been Waiting On, this 2010 CD is what brothers and sisters call a concept album, much like Marvin Gaye's timeless statement What's Going On (1971) or Anita Baker's jazz-kissed Compositions (1990). That means it is not a mere random collection of songs but an impeccably sequenced cycle of musical ruminations. They put the listener in a Zen state trance, turning them inward and provoking them to go there as Abby leads them through a maze of emotions with the promise of sweet rebirth at the end. It is a strikingly personal project that Dobson has been chiseling as if her life depended on it. Everyone is born with a purpose, Abby states. Through the course of life, we all have to find that purpose then fight like mad to live within it. My album is a call for people to wake up and make their dreams come true. Don't depend on others to define or color what that dream is for you. YOU are the one you've been waiting for. My purpose is the honor of being a musician and vocal artist, writing and sharing music that touches people, and making an inspiring difference on my journey toward discovery. To bring this concept to life, Abby drew an artfully singular connection between the ageless fairy tale Sleeping Beauty and Pulitzer Prize-wining authoress Alice Walker's uplifting We Are the One's We Have Been Waiting For: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness. Following the instrumental introduction Cool Rain (A Prelude for Horns) - dripping with atmosphere - Abby opens the album with the reggae blues I'm Drownin' which sets the thematic thread into motion of a woman torn. Don't want to be alone, you're all I know / My lover, best friend, don't know where we end and I begin... Over 13 pieces in total, Abby walks with you through five distinct stages of this woman's drama-filled journey - stages she dubs individually as moods and collectively as volumood one that are an emotional rollercoaster. Along the way, listeners are baptized in Abby's torrential vocal and lyrical waters with evocative titles such as Didn't Know You'd Be The One (a hip-syncopated song awash in pedal steel guitar), Still Alive (a dreamy soul groove that grows up into a poplar of defiant survival), Unconditionally (a reflective piano and voice-only paean featuring Grammy-nominated Blue Note recording artist Robert Glasper), Born 2 Luv U (set to a lush string backdrop punctuated with a heavy backbeat), Deeply (a sexy soul song of longing that echoes a familiar Bill Withers refrain) and No More Happily Ever After (which marks a sharp drop down into icy isolation scored by stinging acoustic guitar). Reclamation and affirmation triumphantly follow with the closing numbers Not This Girl, Be Free, (In the) Castle of My Skin and Sleeping Beauty (Go Make the World You Dream), making Abby's debut th
