Demetria Taylor Sings Some Bad Blues on "Bad Girl"!

Demetria Taylor sings the blues. She SINGS the blues. Ever since Ma, Bessie and Minnie, women have made it clear that the blues is no exclusively male domain. That's no less true in the urban, electrified blues world today than it was when the early masters recorded, Bessie in a tent on one session, since her voice was so powerful the cutting needle was jumping off its track. If anybody would make that needle jump again, its Demetria Taylor. She has one huge and imperative delivery. She belts them out, Jack. She's the daughter of Chicago blues guitar legend Eddie Taylor, and you hear how she must have imbibed the blues tradition starting at a young age.

Bad Girl (Delmark 814), her recorded debut, dispenses with the tent because today of course we can get the levels right without recourse to such extremes. Tent or no, Demetria lets it all loose in a program of blues classics and classic blues that electrify as they electri-testify. It's Demetria and a hot band of urban bluesmen. The guitars of Shun Kikuta and Eddie Taylor, Jr come out of the background and power up some firestorming bends and tatoos to match Demetria's passionate soulfulness.

Listen to the growling despair of "Cherry Red Wine" and you know that nothing has been watered down for the feint of heart. There are hot versions of "Wang Dang Doodle," "I'm A Woman/Hootchie Cootchie Woman," "Big Boss Man," and "Wang Dang Doodle" and "Little Red Rooster," and it all hits home. Demetria HAS it in all the ways the classic Chicago blues greats had it. Bad Girl gives you the goods. You think there's nothing happening in the blues today? Think again. Demetria Taylor is one of those happening things. So get with her music.

Gettin' Kinda Rough with Grana Louise

You get the feeling listening to blues-soulstress Grana Louise that she knows how to handle herself in just about any situation she might come across. She is one tough woman. Her CD Gettin' Kinda Rough (Delmark 812) comes through like a freight train that's taking on no passengers at the station and, whew, man, she's here and gone!

We are talking about old-school blues-soul with the raw electric power and the in-your-face sassy! Grana sings like a downed power line, crackling, bristling with natural energy and exposed kinetic danger.

She has cannon-shot power and marksmanship precision in her delivery. She's got that explosive blues voice that does most emphatically NOT hold back. She delivers, baby! Raunchy, brimming with blues power. Hey, she is the real deal.

Half the CD is recorded in the studio, the other half in a club where she takes control and OWNS the crowd in the best Chicago blues tradition.

Beware if you are the sort that blushes at subject matter that is NOT POLITE. When she sings that she's going to "Big Dick, Mississippi, where the trees grow tall," there's no missing what she means. This is no refined drawing-room banter, you'd best believe. And when she sings about being a dutiful housefrau, staying home and "learning how to cheat on you," well you know she is not messing around with indirect talk.

This is a hell of an album. The band blows strong behind her and she blows everyone away.

This is old school blues at its very finest. Oh, yes, I mean that! Grana Louise tells it, she sings it, and you knows it. You have been SUNG to, Jackson!