In the season of love, no song touches the heartstrings quite like Randy Crawford’s ‘Almaz’: Justice B. Hill

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The story resembles a tall story, very like those I’m instructed that anglers recount as they drink chilly beers and brag to buddies in regards to the monster marlin they hooked.

But this story is true. It displays the generosity of Randy Crawford, an R&B songstress from Cincinnati, whose music I’ve adored for extra years than I dare to confess. Crawford’s voice produces a beguiling, mesmerizing sound, and the one tune of hers that I like finest is “Almaz,” a real love story.

Right here’s a sampling of it:

She solely smiles, he solely tells her/That she’s the flowers, the wind and spring/In all her splendor, sweetly surrendering/The love that innocence brings

Crawford’s lyrics are candy and charmingly poetic, though I’ve a blind spot for them due to how a lot her velvety tones contact my feelings. She’s the final word songbird; she has a present that retains on giving to those that respect artists along with her expertise.

But “Almaz,” which Crawford additionally composed, is greater than what it appears. In story after story that I’ve examine its origins, she instructed interviewers that she wrote the one for 2 refugees from Eritrea whom she lived subsequent door to in England.

In her African neighbors, Crawford bought to witness love at its purest: an older man who dedicated himself to a youthful lady. Her title was Almaz, an Arabic phrase which means “diamond.”

Constructing a bond with the couple and their baby, she realized they have been fleeing a homeland of drought, of poverty and of genocide on the Purple Coastline; they immigrated to England searching for someplace the place “love survives.”

“Almaz,” a single Crawford launched within the late ‘70s, was her present to them.

Her tune has been a present to all of us. For aren’t all of us searching for someplace the place love survives?

Every time I hear “Almaz,” I remind myself of what this world is, how tremblingly unsteady love might be, how ephemeral it too typically is.

Novelists like Zora Neale Hurston craft tales about love gone sideways; administrators produce motion pictures about such themes; and singers croon about them — suppose Adele’s “Somebody Like You” or Billy Paul’s “Me and Mrs. Jones” or Toni Braxton’s “Un-Break My Coronary heart.” However from time to time, songs depart us with a smile or convey us tears of happiness.

Crawford’s “Almaz” does each.

Someplace out there’s a world the place real love survives. I believe that world is oh-so tiny, constructed extra round intangibles quite than the tangibles of our lives. However we by no means wanted the latter to convey us what the Eritrean refugees had.

Crawford discovered the best lyrics to focus on their love, and her seductive vocals make all of us who’ve heard the tune ponder our loves — notably the loves we’ve got held tightly to.

As treasured a present because the globetrotting Crawford penned for her neighbors, they by no means obtained it. When she went at some point to share “Almaz” with the couple, the household had moved.

Moved the place?

Throughout interviews in regards to the tune, Crawford dropped no clues.

In a world of insanity and distress, of loves unrequited or of loves misplaced altogether, possibly the Eritrean refugees who befriended Crawford returned to their homeland or they discovered someplace else on this mysterious world the place love survives.

I pray all of us discover that place.

Justice B. Hill grew up and continues to reside within the Glenville group. He practiced journalism for greater than 25 years earlier than settling into instructing at Ohio College. He stop Could 15, 2019, to jot down and globetrot. He’s been doing each.