New Blues Review 5-6-25
By Jack Roy
Carla Thomas – Sweet, Sweetheart (Sound View)
Bio – “Rhythm and Blues singer Carla Thomas is best known for a series of hit records in the 1960s which garnered for her the title, the Queen of Memphis Soul. Carla Venita Thomas was born on December 1, 1942, in the Foote Homes Housing Project in Memphis, Tennessee. Along with her siblings, Marvell and Vaneese, she was one of three children of Rufus and Lorene Thomas. Her father was a well-known entertainment personality in his own right as a disk jockey for WDIA, the local black-oriented radio station, and because he was the emcee of the Palace Theater on Beale Street. Because of her father’s prominence in the local music industry, Thomas was introduced as a child to the music world. In the early 1950s WDIA sponsored a rotating musical group of high school students called the Teen Town Singers. Isaac Hayes was among the notably teenage performers who would go on to professional careers. Although members of the group were normally required to be of high school age, Thomas joined in 1952 at the age of 10 thanks to her father, Rufus. She continued to perform with the singers until her senior year in 1960. In 1960, while 17 and still attending Hamilton High School in Memphis, Thomas made her first recording, “Cause I Love You.” This duet with her father caught the interest of Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records. He signed a deal with the owners of Satellite (later Stax) Records, Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, to distribute the song and thus launched Thomas’s professional career. “Cause I Love You” was the first recording of Stax, the company which would by the late 1960s be second to Motown Records in Detroit, Michigan as the nation’s producer of soul, gospel, and R&B music. Thomas completed college and returned to Memphis to become a regular artist with Stax Records. She continued to record, often on duets with her father. In 1966 her recording, “B-A-B-Y” went to number three on the R&B chart and number 14 on the pop chart. The following year she teamed with newly signed Stax performer Otis Redding and in March of 1967 they released the album, “King & Queen.” Three singles were released from the album: “Tramp” in April 1967 peaked at number two, “Knock on Wood” peaked in September 1967 at number eight, and “Lovey Dovey” in late 1968 charted at number 21. Otis Redding was killed in a 1967 plane crash and Thomas never again had a top-selling record or album. Thomas stayed with Stax until the label closed in 1975. She rarely performed after that. In the early 1980s she became involved with “Artists in the Schools,” a series of workshops designed to talk to Memphis teenagers about music, performing arts, and drug abuse.”
Review – What treat this is!! What I read is that this album was recorded in the 70’s, one song was released and the rest was put up on the shelf until now when it remastered and this CD was the result. Really is a time capsule of the soul sound in the Memphis Area at the time. Carla’s voice is incredible as she covers songs by James Taylor, The Bee Gees, Goffin and King and others. Every song is musical nugget and spatial trip back to a different time. I think my favorite is “To Love Somebody″, a Bee Gees’ tune, listen here. I will give this a 6 on Blues Content and a 10++ on Music Content.
Anne Harris – I feel It Once Again (Sound View)
Bio – “Anne Harris (born February 2, 1966) is an American singer, songwriter, violinist, recording artist, and actress based in Chicago, Illinois. She has independently produced and released six studio albums on her record label, Rugged Road Records: Anne Harris (2001), Open Your Doors (2003), Wine and Poetry (2005), Gravity and Faith (2008), Come Hither (2015) and Roots (2019). A live album, Live at the Acorn Theater, was released in 2008. After college, Harris moved to Chicago and worked as an actor in theater and commercials for a few years before returning to music around 1997. She worked for a while with a number of local Chicago bands, notably Poi Dog Pondering, building a strong reputation for her instrumental talent. Over time she began writing and performing her own music. Along with her recorded work, Harris has performed at the North by Northeast music festival in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, has sung the U.S. National Anthem at a Chicago Cubs baseball game and was awarded “Album Artwork of the Year” honors at the 2006 DIY Music Festival in Los Angeles for her Wine and Poetry CD packaging. Harris continues to play violin with other notable national artists. From 2009 into 2018, she toured and recorded with trance-blues innovator and 2009 Blues Music Award winner, Otis Taylor. She also has appeared with Cathy Richardson in several formations – as a duo, in the Cathy Richardson Band, and in Jefferson Starship. She has served an elected term on the Board of Governors of the Chicago Chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Harris also appeared as the character “Prudence” on three episodes of Jack’s Big Music Show, a music oriented children’s television program on Noggin”
Review – My first introduction of the brilliance of Anne Harris is when she started playing with Bluesman Otis Taylor, actually I didn’t know she could sing until now, and she can!! The CD is kind of diverse in the music style kind of swaying back and forth between cosmic Americana and Irish based fiddle tunes. Not seeing that this should be classified as a Blues CD, but still very entertaining to listen to. I think my favorite is “I Believe in Being Ready″, a remake and designed tune, listen here. I will give this a 6 on Blues Content and a 9 on Music Content.
Valerie June – Owls, Omens, and Oracles (Sound View)
Bio – “Valerie June Hockett (born January 10, 1982), is an American singer, songwriter, Grammy-nominated, multi-instrumentalist, and author from West Tennessee. She combines psychedelic folk, indie rock, Appalachian, bluegrass, country soul, symphonic pop, and blues with her southern roots and northern cosmopolitan charm to create her own sonic universe. Born in Jackson, Tennessee on January 10, 1982, June is the second of five children. As a child growing up in Humboldt, June was exposed to gospel music at her local church and R&B and soul music via her father, Emerson Hockett, who was also a part-time concert promoter. As a teenager, her first job was with her father, owner of Hockett Construction in West Tennessee, and a part-time promoter for gospel singers and Prince, K-Ci & JoJo, and Bobby Womack. She helped by hanging posters in town. Her father died in late 2016. In 2011 she was honored by the Memphis and Shelby County Music Commission at the Emissaries of Memphis Music event. She raised funds to record an album with producer Craig Street via Kickstarter.com, raising $15,000 in 60 days. Later that year she relocated from Memphis to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Shortly after, record producer Kevin Augunas introduced June to Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, which led to the recording of June’s album Pushin’ Against a Stone in July 2011, which was co-written and produced by Dan Auerbach and Kevin Augunas. In 2012, June performed with producer John Forté on a collaboration called Water Suites (on the hip-hop-blues song “Give Me Water”), and with Meshell Ndegeocello on the song “Be My Husband”. She contributed The Wandering’s 2012 album Go on Now, You Can’t Stay Here: Mississippi Folk Music Volume III. In 2012 she performed in the United Kingdom for the first time, playing at Bestival and appearing on Later… with Jools Holland. She has received substantial radio play in Europe on BBC Radio 6, including a feature on Cerys on 6 with Cerys Matthews. Mary Anne Hobbs of XFM has said of June: “This woman has already touched my heart, she really, really has.” In February 2013, June was invited to support Jake Bugg on the UK leg of his tour. In March 2013, June performed two nights at South By Southwest. The first performance was on March 14 as part of the Heartbreaker Banquet. On March 16, June performed again, this time as part of The Revival Tour. After self-releasing three albums, her debut album as a signed artist, Pushin’ Against a Stone, was released in the UK and Europe through Sunday Best Recordings on May 6, 2013, and through Concord Music Group in August 2013. The album includes several songs co-written with Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, who co-produced it with Kevin Augunas. The album was so titled to commemorate the story of her life. June said: “I feel I’ve spent my life pushing against a stone. And the jobs I’ve had have been fitting for getting a true feel for how the traditional artists I loved came home after a hard day to sit on the porch and play tunes until bedtime.” The record includes performances by Booker T. Jones, who co-wrote one of the songs contained on the album. The track “Workin’ Woman Blues” was produced and engineered by Peter Sabák in Budapest. June has described the recording of the song as “magical” as it was completed in approximately 30 minutes. The two singles released in the UK and Europe were “Workin’ Woman Blues” and “You Can’t Be Told.”
Review – I am a huge Valerie June fan, I have seen her live about 8 or so times and she never disappoints. Another artist that is tough to pigeon hole as far as Genre. She reminds me of an old time country singer, modern pop singer and spiritual jester. Her writing, her ability to play with the spacey sound of each song is incredible on this release. Ones that stood out on this album are “My Life Is A Country Song”, “Joy, Joy” and “Superpower”. I think my favorite is “Calling My Spirit″, mainly because it showcases her incredible voice and the ability to move a song in space, listen here. I will give this a 7 on Blues Content and a 10++ on Music Content.
Ally Venable – Money & Power (Sound View)
Bio – “Texas blues-rock singer/songwriter and guitarist extraordinaire, Ally Venable, entertains wherever she goes. With her signature glitter dresses and black knee-high boots, Venable comes off of the ropes swinging dazzling crowds on tour or throughout the festival circuit. “Venable pulls off a stunner of gritty and/or sultry blues rock tunes embellished with lots of tasty guitar solos.” – Guitar Player Magazine. A Kilgore, Texas native, Ally began singing at church at four and picked up the guitar at age 12. By 13, she started her own band and through her early influence of Stevie Ray Vaughan captured the passion and yearning for more in the blues genre. Early releases No Glass Shoes (2016) and Puppet Show (2018) started her fanbase, charting radio play, and several East Texas Music Awards. It was 2019’s #2 Billboard Blues charting Texas Honey and rocking sets on Ruf’s European Blues Caravan tour that propelled her internationally. “Ally is the future of blues and the crossover music of American roots-rock.” – Mike Zito. In what silenced many musicians during the pandemic, Venable now in her 20’s, released another Blues Billboard charting album, Heart of Fire (2021), which challenged her to write not only about love but the unguarded honesty of feeling pain.”On this album,I really wanted to create a tone of overcoming your struggles and persevering through them,” she explains. Mentor and featured artist on this album, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, lends his guitar skills on XM Bluesville’s charted song, “Bring on the Pain.” In 2022, Guitar World Magazine named Ally #2 on the top 15 Young Guns Making the Gibson Les Paul Cool Again, and she received the Road Warrior award from the Independent Blues Music Awards. Along with Ally’s own tour domestically and in Europe, her band has supported Buddy Guy and Kenny Wayne Shepherd throughout the US, as well as Colin James in Canada. She has performed as a featured artist on the Experience Hendrix Show at the ACL Live at Moody Theater in Austin, Texas. Venable’s recent spring 2023 release produced by Grammy award winning producer, Tom Hambridge, includes a duet with the iconic Buddy Guy and a song featuring powerhouse guitarist Joe Bonamassa debuted at #1 on the Billboard Blues Charts & has remained in the top 100 since the release date. ”
Review – Ally has it all, can sing her butt off with either raspy hard rocking Blues or with slow Ballads and she can play guitar! She starts the album off with a killer Rock Blues with Christone “Kingfish” Ingram on guitar shredding the song!! Her band is super strong including Tom Hambridge on Drums and Ally’s cowriter on a lot of the songs that they publish. The rest of the band consists with EJ Bedford on Bass, Kenny Greenberg on Guitar, Luke Mosely and Time Lauer on Keys and Jason Grant and Jorion Dawson on Saxophone. Some of the gems on this album for me are “Do You Cry”, “Stopper Back Papa” and “Black Cat” but I think my favorite is “Unbreakable″, with the amazing Shemekia Copeland sharing vocals, listen here. I will give this a 10 on Blues Content and a 10 on Music Content.
Carolyn Wonderland – Truth Is (Sound View)
Bio – “The depths of the Texas blues tradition with the wit of a poet. She hits the stage with an unmatched presence, a true legend in her time. She’d grown up the child of a singer in a band and began playing her mother’s vintage Martin guitar when other girls were dressing dolls. She’d gone from being the teenage toast of her hometown Houston to sleeping in her van in Austin amid heaps of critical acclaim for excellent recordings. Along with the guitar and the multitude of other instruments she learned to play – trumpet, accordion, piano, mandolin, lap steel – Wonderland’s ability to whistle remains most unusual. Whistling is a uniquely vocal art seldom invoked in modern music, yet it’s among the most spectacular talents the human voice possesses. That vocal proficiency was well-established in the singer’s midteens, landing her gigs at Fitzgerald’s by age 15. She absorbed Houston influences like Little Screamin’ Kenny, Albert Collins, Lavelle White, Jerry Lightfoot, Joe “Guitar” Hughes, Little Joe Washington, “borrowed” a car to sneak out and jam ended up swapping songs with Townes Van Zandt at Houston’s Local’s on White Oak, got involved in the underground theater scene becoming the first “Photochick” in Jason Nodler’s “In the Under Thunderloo” and soaked up touring bands like the Paladins, Los Lobos, and the Mad Hatter of Texas music, Doug Sahm. Her music played in television series such as “Time of Your Life” and NBC’s “Homicide.” The Lone Star State was as credible a proving ground for blues in the 1980s and 90s as existed, especially in Austin with Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Angela Strehli, Omar & the Howlers, and Lou Ann Barton all in their prime. By the following decade, Austin’s blues luster thinned, but Houston, always a bastion of soul and R&B, boasted the Imperial Monkeys with the effervescent Carolyn Wonderland as ruler of the jungle. In the early 1990s, Wonderland & the Imperial Monkeys were invited to the Guadalupe Street Antone’s in Austin. There, they were treated like royalty with the singer as the queen of hearts in the club’s post-Stevie Ray Vaughan stable, which included Toni Price, Johnny and Jay Moeller, Sue Foley, Mike and Corey Keller, and the Ugly Americans. It was a good bar for the Monkeys to hang, and Austin felt so comfortable that when the band called it quits a few years later, after a run-in with black ice and a semi that wound young Miss Wonderland in the hospital, she set her sights on Austin at the start of the millennium. Besides, Doug Sahm had told Carolyn while they were signing autographs together at the High Sierra Music Festival, she ought to move to Austin, as it was the land of free guitar lessons. She was there in months. Living in Austin renewed Carolyn Wonderland’s focus on her multiple talents, underlining rich vocals with excellent guitar work, trumpet, and piano, as well as that remarkable ability to whistle on key. Despite spending two years homeless (or as she puts it, “van-full,”) Austin has been fertile ground for Carolyn. A series of each-better-than-the-next discs began with Alcohol & Salvation in 2001 (“songs about booze and God; records are a time capsule of what happened that year”) 2003’s “Bloodless Revolution,” The Bismeaux Releases: 2008’s “Miss Understood,” 2011’s “Peace Meal” (recorded at Bismeaux and Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock,) 2015’s “Live Texas Trio”; and here we are with 2017’s “Moon Goes Missing.” Carolyn also got to stretch out with other bands and notably appears in Jerry Lightfoot’s Band of Wonder’s 2002 release, “Texistentialism” featuring Jerry Lightfoot, Vince Welnick (Grateful Dead, The Tubes, Todd Rundgren,) Carolyn, Barry “Frosty” Smith (Lee Michaels, Sly & the Family Stone, Rare Earth, Soulhat) and Larry Fulcher (Taj Mahal, Phantom Blues Band). She has released many songs for charity, 2016’s “Room at the Inn” (iTunes) benefits Doctors Without Borders, 2013’s “Money in the Game” (featuring Marcia Ball and Shelley King) benefits Planned Parenthood, “the Farmer Song” from “Miss Understood” benefits Farm AID, “Annie’s Scarlet Letter” from “Bloodless Revolution” benefits NORML, 1997 Justice Records released Carolyn’s version of Little Screamin’ Kenny’s holiday lament, “Blue Lights” (featuring Ian McLagan) benefitting MD Anderson Children’s Art Project.”
Review – Carolyn has an amazing, unique voice for the Blues, strong with almost a country coloring to it. She can also really shred on guitar, total package. This album is filled with amazing tunes which Carolyn wrote most of. Allstar band consisting of the core of Naj Conklin on Bass and Giovanni Carnuccio on Drums, guest for this album include Shelley King on vocals, Dave Alvin on Guitar, Red Young on B2, Ruthie Foster on Vocals, Marcia Ball on vocals and keys and Cindy Cashdollar on Lap Steel to just name a few. Some notables are “Truth Is” with Ruthie Foster on vocals, “Orange Juice Blues”, “Tattoos As A Talisman” but I think my favorite is “Sooner Or Later″, great lap steel tune, listen here. I will give this a 10 on Blues Content and a 10 on Music Content.
