Sharon Lewis & Texas Fire, "The Real Deal"

I present for your consideration Sharon Lewis, soulful alto singer, as Rod Serling might have put it. But Sharon's not in a Twlight Zone. She's got both feet on terra firma. She and her band Texas Fire have one out on Delmark, The Real Deal (816). It's a funky old-school horn band with Ms. Lewis getting down overtop.

They get real throughout, plunging through some nicely hard-_ssed originals and some good-choice covers. Ms. Lewis may not be Bessie Smith but she has soul. The band lays it down. It almost sounds like something that might have come out of Memphis in the Hi-Muscle Shoals days. But then it has a Chicago-by-way-of-Texas hard honesty and what counts most of all, it kicks up a good fuss. Oh, and Dave Specter sounds nice on guitar too.