Ladies Sing the Blues:

MARCIA BALL

Peace, Love & BBQ

Alligator Records

JANIVA MAGNESS

What Love Will Do

Alligator Records

By Stephanie Schorow

Can two gorgeous, talented white chicks really get the blues? Yes, indeed. Not only that, Marcia Ball and Janiva Magness wrest new meaning from old themes, finding inspiration in both the common and the extraordinary. 

            Two new CDs from Alligator Records showcase the talents of these gutsy singers – one born in Texas and the other in Detroit – whose country-tinged blues and roadhouse R&B explore an inner and outer landscape.

            Marcia Ball – a singer and piano player influenced by the great Professor Longhair – has been performing since her college days in 1966 and launched a successful solo career in 1974. She has been nominated for a Grammy and in 1998 won the Blues Music Award for Contemporary Female Vocalist of the Year.

In her new album, she kicks the party off on a jaunty, sardonic note with her tribute to the Big Easy spirit, "Party Town" and its rollicking lyrics about New Orleans as the place where you can "drink all day, dance all night." Take that, FEMA! A more pointed reference to Hurricane Katrina can be found in Ball's tune, "Ride It Out," a poignant ballad about a home in Mississippi that survived Hurricane Camilla in 1969 only to be swept away in a later tempest. The home, she sings,  "came to rest in Fairhope and I'll be a son of a gun. Now my home's in Alabama."

            A spirit of survival infuses the album which is an unabashed tribute to the down home ways of Louisiana and Texas, from their cuisine, characters and attitudes. Perhaps the best tune is the title track, "Peace, Love & BBQ," a nostalgic, high-spirited tribute to the spirit that drives men to play with fire and raw meat on the grill. You can practically smell the charcoal as Ball belts out the joys of 'tater salad, beans and slaw. "Watermelon Time," with its boogie-woogie piano riffs and lyrics about the fruit as "sweet as candy, sugar on the vine," will make your mouth water.

            Ball slows it down for the haunting, but somewhat creepy "Miracle in Knoxville," which is a new twist on the death before dishonor conundrum. The "miracle" concerns a preacher who asks God to strike him down before he succumbs to temptation and God, rather too quickly, obliges him.

            Ball's duet with gritty-voiced Mac Rebennack (a.k.a. Dr. John) brings out the gentle longing of a lover who can't let go in "I'll Never Be Free" and showcases Ball's skill on the ivories, even as the lyrics and arrangements lurch toward the schmaltzy. And in the zydeco-inflected "Married Life," Ball reflects on the pleasures of wedded bliss, a twist on the blues' lessons of love.

            Indeed, Peace, Love & BBQ gives a fresh twist to many blues staples, including our longing for love, home and mighty fine cooking.

            In looking at What Love Will Do in her new CD, Janiva Magness finds there's very little that we WON'T do for love. Magness looks at all aspects of that emotion that drives so much of human life – the highs, the lows, the bitter and the sweet. It's a triumph of sophisticated style and rambunctious energy.

            In the liner notes, it's clear why Magness takes love so personally. She lost both parents to suicide by the time she was 16, sending her to a series of foster homes and often, the streets. As a teenage mother, she gave up a child for adoption. An Otis Rush concert showed Magness her calling and an opportunity to sing supporting vocals while working at a recording studio was her big break. By 1986, she had her own band and released a series of blues albums that won her critical acclaim. In 2006, Do I Move You? was the #1 Blues CD of the Year on Living Blues radio chart. A ferociously dedicated performer, she traveled to Iraq and Kuwait in April 2008 for the first-ever blues concert for American troops. 

            Magness doesn't hold back in What Love Will Do, which she co-produced with Dave Darling (Brian Setzer, Meredith Brooks, Dan Hicks) and includes songs done by Tina Turner, Annie Lennox, Marvin Gaye, Bill Withers, The Band and others.  She infuses "Bitter Pill" with the rage of a rejected lover, fills "I'm Glad Your Mine" with unbridled happiness, and adds a dab of arch attraction in "You Sound Pretty Good." The ragged "I Don't Want You On My Mind" and the raw "I Won't Be Around" showcase Magness's husky, soulful voice at its best.

With background vocals by Donny Gerrard, Mark Philpart, Julie Christensen, Brie Darling and Dave Darling (who sound a bit like Magness' very own Pips), Magness may sing about the trauma of love, but even in the depths of despair, she acknowledges how much better it is to feel its bite than feel nothing at all. In "I Want a Love" – one of the CD's best songs – she admits: "I want a love that make me stutter when I talk/weak in the knees/stumble when I walk." Don't we all, despite the consequences?

What Love Will Do will satisfy those both burned and buoyed by the power of love.  

Stephanie Schorow is a Boston-based freelance writer and book author. Her web site is www.stephanieschorow.com

Copyright 2008: Chicago Blues Guide