This one has a backstory worth knowing. New York artist Chris Oledude originally wrote “If A Woman Had Made The World” back in 1983, dedicating it to his late mother, Ethel Werfel Owens. It appeared on a cassette release in 1984, recorded on an 8-track board with a guitar solo by Clyde Spillenger – a Princeton grad who went on to join UCLA’s law faculty and still considers himself a jazz guitarist in a law professor’s body. Four decades later, Oledude has revisited the song, this time as a proper duet featuring vocalist Kiena Williams, with Spillenger returning for another solo. The dedication has since been updated to include Oledude‘s late wife, Sandra E. Dixon, who passed away in 2019. It came out on February 23rd.
Subtlety is not part of the vocabulary here. The song’s intro is as blunt as a message can be – the world around us is messed up, and we need to find a better way. This prompts the long, colorful musical journey they take us on, as we imagine what a world created by a woman would be like. Musically, the song features the signature Chris Oledude sound, similar to the one I previously covered from him, “Rainbow Soul”, with a huge ensemble of soulful musicians coming together to create a colorful explosion of rhythm and harmony.
Kiena Williams was clearly the right call for this one. The song was always built around the idea of a powerful female voice at its center, and this version finally gets there. Forty-plus years in the making, and it sounds like it.