Girls just wanna have fun…
While she looks vampy on the kitschy cover with her pair of boas, Beth Garner eschews all gimmicks on this 7 song collection of blues wailing tunes. She’s got a voice akin to early Bonnie Raitt, and can snarl on along with a harp on the foot stomping ZZ Top inspired pieces like “Backroads Freddie” and the earthy title track, while getting rural with ominous shadows on the delta church mooded “Drop Down.” Rory Hoffman’s baritone sax makes “Alright By Me” and “Ramblin’ Man” nice and swampy, while the remaining team of Wes Little/dr, and Steve Forrest/b show how to boogie on “Used to Be.” This one’s a Strat loving beaut!
Vocalist Nina Massara gets gritty on the R&B inflected collection that is fun and funky. The swampy team of Chris Marsh/b, John Chipman/dr, Colin Brooks-Jens Runge-Mads Dalsgaard set the tempo while Lars Ringgard/harp, Hans Nybo/sax, Peter Marott/tp and Mortet Wittrock/key add the STAX groove to pieces like “Watch Me” and honky tonking “Full Grown Woman.” Her voice is coquettish, and it works well on the Crescent City grooved “Something New” and “Crazy” while she deliciously holds behind the deep groove while seductively snarling on “Impossible to Resist” and is relaxed on the lazy bones’d “Big Easy.” Hard to say no to!
Stefanie Berecz is the lithe voice along with Brendan O’Connell/key-g, Chris COrsale/g, Greg Nergaard/g, Lucas Gillan/dr, Jim Schram/ts-fl and Caleb Mitchell/tp on this Decalogue of originals. She’s a rich storyteller, with her dreamy voice working well with O’Connell’s piano on “Everything Is Broken” and the stringy ballad “If It Was you.” Other times, the team p lugs in for a metallic and heavy drumming “Starlight” and rocking good time on “LOVE (Let’s Me Know).” Thoughtful semi rock stories make up “Love You Better’ and the strumming “That’s Enough.” Ten short stories set to modern sounds.