Bawdy, bold, raucous, risqué, sassy, sexy, wild, wicked. These are adjectives that normally come to mind to describe blues women. Angelic isn’t a term usually associated with ladies who sing the blues. But to the producers of Angels Sing The Blues, these blues women (and men) are indeed heavenly messengers sent to earth to deliver us.

Shirley Johnson, Mary Lane and Liz Mandeville are the angels in question and they certainly fit the above description in the first sentence, with each of those attributes on full display on this (mostly) live recording. Liz Mandeville, in particular, sounds like her halo is held up by a couple of horns (as in horney) when she belts out her bedroom advice to the menfolk on “Use What You Got.”  

In 2007, the three ladies joined with Johnny Drummer & the Starliters to put on a revue style show at The Taste Entertainment Center on Chicago’s South Side for a live audience, while the tapes rolled. Judging by the audience reaction, it must have been a really fun time!  After all, these earth angels -- Shirley, Liz and Mary, along with the multi-talented Johnny Drummer -- are all veterans of the club scene and are experts at knowing how to work a room.

The show kicks off with the funky rhythms of the Johnny “Guitar” Watson classic, “A Real Mother For Ya” as sung by guitarist Alvin Short. Next up, bassist Danny O’Connor sings lead and gives us a big fat bottom on Sir Mack Rice’s “Cold Women With Warm Hearts,” a tune famously performed by the late great Magic Slim for decades. After warming up the crowd, the house band calls out Johnny Drummer who proceeds to bring us down home with “Gonna Sell My Cadillac, Buy Myself a Mule.”  Known as a story-telling songwriter, Drummer then takes us back to his roots with his original song “Born in the Delta” – his fond memory of growing up in the cotton fields, waking to a rooster’s crow and the smell of a wood burning fire with bacon sizzling in the pan. You can tell the crowd is really engaged by Drummer’s down home charm -- enhanced by the band’s tight rhythms and Al Short’s tasty guitar solos.

Shirley Johnson tells off her no good man in style on “Get Your Lovin’ Where You Spend Your Time.” Her deep, husky, emotion-packed voice gets the message across to a rockabilly tinged, shuffle. Unfortunately this studio track, which sounds far more polished than the other cuts, interrupts the momentum created by the previous live songs.

Mary Lane brings us back to “Live At The Taste” with her rendition of “I Don’t Want No Man/Just As Grown As You”. The sassy senior stamps a feminine touch on the song -- which Magic Sam recorded as “I Don’t Want No Woman” on his landmark West Side Soul album. The clever singer includes a brief medley that ends with a touch of “Kansas City.” Mary takes us for a spin with “Ride in Your Automobile,” and sounds like she’s been around the block a time or two as she engages the audience to clap along. Johnny Drummer contributes his keyboard and harmonica skills to these tunes and throughout the evening.

Drummer returns to get the crowd “Rockin’ In The Juke Joint,” with this hip-shakin’ party song, highlighted by several of Short’s tasty guitar solos. The tune ends with Mary Lane adding a touch of “Wang Dang Doodle,” as she sings “all night long, all night long.”

Shirley Johnson’s first live contribution, “I’m Going To Find Me A Lover,” is given a super-fast-paced disco beat by the band. Admirably, Shirley has the chops to keep up with them. While blues fans generally aren’t into ‘70s disco music, it’s not unusual to hear a South Side blues band spin off into a tune from that era. At nearly six minutes long, this non-blues tune is way too long for this blues lover.

The band keeps a brisk tempo as Shirley wails for an emotion-packed “Unchain My Heart,” the Ray Charles chestnut, which is a staple of her shows to this day. Shirley ends her set with a real deal blues number: “You Can Have My Husband But Please Don’t Mess With My Man” -- another Chicago blues club staple on which Shirley gets down and tells it like it is.

Johnny Drummer introduces Liz Mandeville, who proceeds to bring the house down with her previously mentioned risqué tune, “Use What You Got,” a blush-inducing original song dedicated to inspire the menfolk. Liz makes good use of her powerful, commanding vocal skills on her sultry, show-stopping version of Willie Dixon’s “I Just Want To Make Love To You,” that includes a medley with “Hoochie Coochie Woman.” The crowd stomps and whistles for more, but (at least on CD), they don’t get to hear more from Ms. Liz, which is unfortunate since hers was the most dynamic performance of the night.

The ladies join together for John Prine’s beloved “Angel From Montgomery” and each takes a turn singing a verse; they are joined by heavenly harmonies on the choruses from backup singers Amber McMillan and Taniesha Bock. This is another lush sounding studio track, which would have been a suitable closer for the CD. But unfortunately the CD continues with tacked on “bonus” tracks that would have been better left off the disc.

Listening to these angels sing with Johnny Drummer and the band at The Taste on the South Side gives us a taste of Chicago’s blues scene in the early 21^st Century. These days, Chicago’s blues clubs, are mostly on the North Side. The producers, of both the show and the CD, were likely attempting to capture a moment in time for posterity. The result is a mixed bag, with some good and some not so good tracks. Overall the CD lacks flow and continuity and is padded with “filler.” This is by no means the best recorded output by any of these fine artists.

The CD’s inclusion of random studio tracks -- with higher quality production, a different band and backup singers --  amongst the live recordings, doesn’t really help the cause for the listener’s enjoyment of imagining being at a live show. But apparently there weren’t enough successful live tracks to fill an album, so in 2013 (six years later), the producers got the ladies and Johnny Drummer back together, with a completely different band, into the studio to add to the live CD’s content. Earwig label boss Michael Frank assisted co-producers John “Elwood” Migliaccio and Michael “Jake” Marcus with both the live show and the studio session.

To their credit, Marcus and Migliaccio are known for using their Blues Brother impersonations to inspire, entertain and educate at national conferences for professionals in the Senior Care field. They have presented many legendary blues artists to perform for conferences for over 20 years. This was their first attempt at producing a CD, which took years in the making, for whatever the reason.

The liner notes are not helpful in discerning which tracks were recorded live, which were cut in the studio and who played on what track and when --- but you can tell the distinct difference by listening. Nonetheless, there are some enjoyable moments on Angels Sing The Blues, especially if you are a fan of these artists.

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