May's blues offerings feature a trio of powerful blues women. Belgium's Ghalia Volt may look like a rockabilly queen, but her output is more Mississippi hill country blasted with chunks of bombastic rock. Irish powerhouse Grainne Duffy bemoans heartbreaking situations in a soulful rasp that cuts to the bone. Anne Harris loans her eclectic violin renderings to J.P. Soars for a set that wanders globally but still sounds down home-somewhere.
JP Soars & Anne Harris-Gypsy Blue Revue, May 29
Fans of J.P. Soars are used to his musical meanderings, but this one is arguably one of his most diverse offerings yet. A collaboration with violinist/vocalist Anne Harris, the duo explore a warehouse full of genres and styles.
On her own, Harris vacillates between chamber music, Afrobeat, Celtic, and rock. Soars pleases listeners with a stupefying blend of surf, R&B, reggae, blues, and soul. But blues is his mainstay, handed out in Jimmy Page-worthy chunks or easygoing porch rockin.'
“Goin' to South Carolina” is a slow back porch blues that Harris sweetens with her fiddle, adding a Django Reinhardt gypsy jazz feel to Soars’ laid-back country with lap steel licks. A bit later on on the release, Soars and Harris go full Django with Reinhardt's “Minor Blues.”
“Cigar Box Jam,” a two-stringer delivered on one of the cigar box guitars that Soars builds and plays, has a Middle Eastern flavor and goes on for a whopping eighteen minutes. “Jessie Mae” is an interesting contribution with lyrics donated by the self-proclaimed “High Priest Of Polyester,” the Rev. Billy C. Wirtz, A tribute to pistol-packing hill country blues woman Jessie Mae Hemphill, Soars illustrates the narrative with slippery dobro licks and Harris on fiddle. “Even the Devil called her ma’am/ She could tell a story and knew how to spin it/ Held a gun in her hand, shoot a man in a minute.”
Really nice shake-up from Soars, hope to see more collabs with Harris later on.
