Live Report: Natalie Prass at Workman's, Dublin

"This is my attempt at yacht rock," joked Natalie Prass halfway though her sold-out Workman’s show. The song in question lived up to its billing, with the Richmond, Virginia singer, who had very considerately turned up in a shiny jumpsuit and face-glitter, emoting her heart and soul out in a sweet but never cloying voice as her band summoned the Michael McDonald within.

Incredibly, better was to follow as Prass encored with a sincere and delightfully ramshackle cover of ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, accompanied by Chanele McGuinness and support artist HC McEntire (and a lyrics sheet held an inch from her nose).

Already, it had been a triumphant evening as Prass proceeded at her leisure between southern rock, disco-pop and Muscles Shoals adjacent soul and r’n b. She even channelled Janet Jackson on ‘Short Court Style’, the hazy lead single from last summer’s the Future and the Past album (it’s not her first cap-doff to Janet – as she had previously put out a cover of Jackson’s 1993 hit ‘Any Time Any Place’).

The Future and the Past had emerged from a period of sustained creative trauma, with the artist scrapping two entire LPs before alighting upon material she judged a worthy follow-up to 2015’s Natalie Prass.

But then Prass knows all about the path less travelled. Prior to falling back in with childhood friend Matthew White and his Spacebomb production crew in Richmond, she’d spend nine years as a jobbing writer and performer in Nashville – an apprenticeship which presumably went some way towards explaining her well-honed stage-craft.

However, she was never simply slick in Dublin. There was a heartstopping moment as the band were ushered to the margins and Prass, alone at a keyboard, delivered the Karen Carpenter valentine ‘Far From You’ – both a tribute to The Carpenters’ devastating soft rock and a commentary on how the music industrial complex chewed Carpenter up and spat her out. From soulful to sublime this was an evening to widen the eyes and bring a lump to the throat.