New Blues Review 7-9-24
Denise La Grass – Sundown Rising (Deelagee)
Bio – “Singer/songwriter/keyboard player Denise La Grassa has been winning over audiences with her mix of jazzy/folk/rock & her effervescent personality since her 1999 debut The Tracks. She has played Chicago’s prominent jazz haunts, including The Green Mill, Pops for Champagne, The Velvet Lounge, Green Dolphin Street and Andy’s Jazz Club. She has appeared in New York City at The Knitting Factory, FEZ, H.E.R.E., Surf Reality & Collective Unconscious, as well as abroad in Germany, Switzerland and England. With the release of April Dreams, her first CD in nearly 7 years, La Grassa can’t help but look back on her childhood in suburban Chicago. Her infectious laugh bubbles out of her as she remembers the beginning of her songwriting career. “I was 5, maybe 6 years old and I was writing songs like mad. Once I had a fistful ready to go, I would head out and knock on my neighbors doors and sing the songs right there on their doorstep! I was hoping they’d like the songs enough to buy them. I thought if I sold enough songs, I could buy birthday & Christmas presents for my family. I tell you, I was on my way, but once my family phone started ringing with those, ahh, entertained neighbors, my Mom, uh, politely asked me to stop. But I did get a few dollars in my pocket, and more importantly, I got confidence at an early age as a songwriter.” On break one summer from college, Denise traveled to a place called The Second City in Chicago and discovered a school for performers and writers. “I couldn’t believe what I found. A SCHOOL for people LIKE ME!!!! I left college and soaked up improv writing and acting. Within a year I was traveling with The Second City Touring Company and having the time of my life. One of my favorite improv techniques was called “Make-A-Song.” The audience would shout out topics and ideas and I had to make up songs on the spot. I had a blast writing and singing melodies & parodies under pressure. My only regret is that I don’t have recordings of those performances … then again, maybe that’s a good thing!” Following her stint at The Second City, Denise continued to work in professional theater, performing in plays and musicals. She also wrote and produced two musical One-Person shows. In between musical theater, she landed small parts in a couple of made for HBO movies, including Hometown Boy Makes Good with Anthony Edwards (She’s the funny secretary). And you can still occasionally catch her portrayals of real life people on the TV show Unsolved Mysteries. Despite her busy acting schedule, Denise made time for her music. She performed with her band at nearly every Chicago music venue, and produced two CD’s of original music. The Tracks was released in 1999 and Pieces of Peace three years later. “My old Professor and mentor Bill Russo, who was a big band arranger – he arranged for Stan Kenton among others – kept telling me that I was a talented songwriter and that I should keep writing songs. So I produced those CD’s by myself and shopped them around to a few labels. But I was so busy acting and performing my One-Person musical shows that I wasn’t able to give it the big push that it needed.”.
Review – This is a pretty good Blues/Jazzy/Poppy album, although I am not a huge fan of Denise’s voice. The music is actually good, the band is super solid and the songs are written well. I really liked Pierre Lacocque’s harp playing on “Sundown Rising” and “Key To The Highway”. The rest of the band is composed of Denise on Vocals and Organ, John Kregor on guitar, Steven Manns on Bass, Mike Gee on Drums with Stephen Ryan on Guitar for about 6 of tunes. Some of the notable for me were “Loving for Love’s Sake”, “Key To The Highway” and “Vision of Good Rule Makers”. I think my favorite on this CD is “Hope In Love” , listen here. I will give this an 8 on Blues Content and an 8 on Music Content.
Eden Brent – Getaway Blues (Yellow Dog)
Bio – “Blues lady Eden Brent is a modern-day piano-pounding, juke-joint hollering powerhouse of American roots music. A legendary performer and southern songwriter, she spent the first two decades of her career under the tutelage of Abie “Boogaloo” Ames, before winning The Blues Foundation’s Challenge and bouncing onto the international scene. Since then she lands steady honors, three Blues Music Awards among them. Her new album Getaway Blues presents nine original songs recorded in London with a four-piece band. Laid down in London. Mixed up in Memphis. Made in Mississippi. Eden was born into a family of riverboat captains and guitar pickers in the river port of Greenville, the largest town in the Mississippi Delta, renowned for its literary history. Eden’s own story could have been written by Eudora Welty or Tennessee Williams, or any number of Mississippi’s colorful authors. By the time she was old enough to drive, she christened the M/V Eden Brent, a working towboat built by her family’s river transportation company. The Greenville Bridge and a river museum in Vicksburg bear the name of her grandfather Capt. Jesse who was dubbed “Riverman of the Century” by the Waterways Journal. Her father Capt. Howard, famous for his Hank Williams renditions and grand story-telling, received the “River Legend Award” by the Seaman’s Church Institute who also named a riverboat training simulator in his honor. Mother Carole was a sharecropper turned fashion model, big band singer and “Miss Ace Records” who landed on the cover of Inside Detective magazine and worked at Chicago’s famed Chez Paris where she encountered Boogaloo’s friend Nat King Cole and members of the Rat Pack. Both of Eden’s parents met Elvis Presley, her father in 1955 and her mother in 1956. The Brent household overflowed with music on reel-to-reel and vinyl, all played on a Hi-Fi that was formerly owned by Jerry Lee Lewis and later auctioned by the IRS where the Brents bought it. Suppertime sparked entertainment hour with regular family sing-a-longs. Author Julia Reed remembers the home as “a soulful and far funnier version of ‘The Sound of Music,’” and refers to the family as the “von Brents.”
Review – Now we are talking voice. Eden’s voice is perfect, in my opinion, for Blues/Jazz. Her voice is so clear, so precise with all the right inflections. The smart part of the this album is that it’s the voice that is center with all the music either supporting or around the voice. I love the whole album. The piano is second on this album, from Boogie Woogie Barrel House Piano as in “Getaway Blues” and “Just Because I love You”. The rest of tunes either feel like Country or Love Ballads. Just to give you a feel of Eden’s accomplishments, here is a list of some of her awards:
Blues Music Awards:
Winner – 2010 Pinetop Perkins Piano Player of the Year
Winner – 2009 Acoustic Artist of the Year
Winner – 2009 Acoustic Album of the Year (Mississippi Number One)
Nominee – 2022 Pinetop Perkins Piano Player of the Year
Nominee – 2015 Acoustic Album of the Year (Jigsaw Heart)
Nominee – 2015 Pinetop Perkins Piano Player of the Year
Nominee – 2012 Pinetop Perkins Piano Player of the Year
Nominee – 2011 Album of the Year (Ain’t Got No Troubles)
Nominee – 2011 Koko Taylor Traditional Female Artist
Nominee – 2011 Pinetop Perkins Piano Player of the Year
Nominee – 2009 Pinetop Perkins Piano Player of the Year
Independent Music Awards:
Winner – 2015 Holiday Song (“Valentine” Jigsaw Heart)
Nominee – 2015 Jazz with Vocals Song
Nominee – 2011 Blues Album
Nominee – 2011 Adult Contemporary Song
Nominee – 2009 Blues Album
I think this album will get a few awards also, I think my favorite on this CD is “Rust” , listen here. I will give this a 10+ on Blues Content and a 10+ on Music Content.
Sauce Boss – The Sauce (Swampside)
Bio – “In the mid 1980s, blues guitarist Bill Wharton began experimenting with datil peppers in his Tallahassee greenhouse. When he perfected the recipe, and Liquid Summer was born, he became the most popular guy in the neighborhood. “After a while, I started taking it around to the gigs with me,” Wharton recalls. “I thought if people were going to come over to my house and eat up all my hot sauce, I’ll put a label on it and sell it to them. I would make a couple of gallons and it’d be gone in a couple of weeks.” With his gritty Chicago stockyard vocals, stinging electric slide and outrageous stage demeanor, Wharton was already a popular musician throughout north Florida. Understanding that the stomach is, more or less, the gateway to the heart, he began cooking pots of Liquid Summer right onstage, as he performed. It was a powerful aroma. “I was putting it on chips or something like that, just to show everybody how good it was. And I was looking for a way to really showcase it. Because the sauce is a different animal; it’s got this creeper burn.” Unlike the fiery habanero, “The datil pepper has this little thing where it kind of creeps up on you.” It was 1989 when he upped the ante by cooking five gallons of gumbo from scratch, live onstage, at every show. Soon he was playing his wildman blues – and feeding audiences – all over the southeast. That’s when Bill Wharton became The Sauce Boss. “I’m not motivated by the bling, if you know what I’m saying,” he laughs. “I want to have a good quality of life.” As his gumbo-crafting became legendary, “it sort of evolved into this tent revival of rock ‘n’ roll brotherhood and sharing and all that kind of thing.” Thirty-four years and 200,000 bowls of food later, Bill “Sauce Boss” Wharton still holds the monopoly on blues ‘n’ gumbo; he’ll play, sing, cook and serve, Come hungry. It’s chicken gumbo these days, Warton explains, although sometimes he makes it with sausage instead. In the past he says, he’s used “snapping turtle, alligator, whiskey, chocolate cake, I don’t care. I put it all in there depending on what’s happening that night. “If you know what I’m saying.” What, you might be wondering, does The Sauce Boss have in common with Van Halen? The legendary hard rock group famously demanded a bowl of M&M candies in its dressing room area, with all the “brown ones” removed, before every concert. This edict was on the “rider,” an integral section of an artist’s contract with the venue. Wharton’s rider is equally idiosyncratic: “Instead of taking all the brown ones out, if you know what I’m saying, it’s like ‘I need some okra, and some zucchini and some onions and some other stuff’ … I bring the roux and the hot sauce and the venue generally provides everything else.” Members of the audience are invited, periodically, to come to the stage and stir the simmering pot. “There was a time in the mid ‘90s when I got tired of making gumbo,” Wharton reveals. “And more than that, I got tired of dressing like a chef and doing the clown show. But I got over that because there’s such a community that happens with this – it turns a venue into a really special place. It breaks down the barriers.”
Review – Another artist that I am not crazy about their voice. I like the premise of his Gravely Voice, but it feels pushed and out of key a bit. He does have his (Weird Sometimes) slide playing that is really his saving grace with me. Most of the lyrics are suppose to be cleaver, but falls short many time for me. I do really like the playing of Damon Fowler on “I Will Play For Gumbo” and “Gloria”. I think my favorite on this CD is slow tune “Delta 9 Blues” , listen here. I will give this a 9 on Blues Content and an 8 on Music Content.
Chris Cain – Good Intentions Gone Bad (Alligator)
Bio – “Chris Cain offers up a soulful stew of Memphis style electric blues. His powerfully deep vocals and jazz inspired, blues guitar riffs are unforgettable; uniquely his own, while reminiscent of the legendary BB King and Albert King. As a child, Chris Cain attended concerts with his dad to hear many of the great blues artists of the time. When Cain burst onto the blues scene in 1987 with his award winning debut album, he soon found himself sharing the stage and trading licks with a few of those legends, including Albert King and Albert Collins. Chris Cain has released a dozen albums, each filled with soul-stirring songs pulled from his own blues drenched heart. His brand of blues is unforgettable. Cain was raised on stories of his father’s childhood upbringing on Memphis’ Historic Beale Street and attended his first B.B King concert at the tender age of three. Blues music played continuously on the home stereo and family outings were often trips to concerts. Cain recalls, “I remember when I was a kid, my Dad would be mowing the lawn with the stereo blasting Muddy Waters. When I look back, that was pretty cool! There was always music playing at our house, Ray Charles, B.B. King, Freddie King, Albert King, all the greats.” At the age of eight, Cain taught himself to play guitar and began playing professionally before he was eighteen. Chris studied music at San Jose City College, and was soon teaching jazz improvisation on campus. Over the next twenty years, Cain would also master piano, bass guitar, clarinet, alto and tenor saxophone. The combination of his blues upbringing and his jazz studies melded to form the searing guitar style that sets Chris Cain apart and has moved him to the top ranks of the blues music scene.”
Review – Alright, this is what I am talking about. The full package, great voice, wonderful song writing and wailing Blues Guitar!! What a classic Blues Musician Chris is, such a legend in our genre. His main band members, Greg Rahn on Keys, Steve Evans on Bass and Sky Garcia on Drums are super solid and each of his musicians has come from an incredible background of playing individually with other great artists. Of course, on this album Kid Anderson is helping with producing and he plays periodically during many of songs either with guitar, organ or bass. I really like this whole album, reminds me of the older days when you would buy a CD from some legendary artist like Luther Allison and every song was gold, this one is right up there but I think my favorite on this CD is “Fear Is My New Roommate”, he sounds so much like BB King on this one , listen here. I will give this a 10+ on Blues Content and a 10+ on Music Content.
