Angela Strehli - Ace Of Blues (2022) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Seventeen years after her last solo album, Angela Strehli set out to assemble a collection of "songs by the blues masters who inspired me to become a singer." Strehli, a Lubbock, Texas native, helped establish the Austin, Texas, blues scene in the 1970s, working with Clifford Antone to build his eponymous club and label. It's a gutsy proposition for a singer now into her seventies, but Strehli and her husband producer Bob Brown assembled a solid band at Laughing Tiger Studios in San Rafael, California, that includes lead guitarist Mike Schermer, 82-year-old pianist Johnny Allair and Austinite Mark "Kaz" Kazanoff on harmonica to deliver Ace of Blues, a rare exception in a world full of drowsy, repetitive blues records. While Strehli's register may be a bit lower and gruffer than in her Austin glory days, you can still hear her passion. As Brown puts it, "My wife is as genuine and soulful a woman as you will meet … her voice tells it all." Another strength are the arrangements which are kept snappy throughout. A joyous take of Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell" swings hard. Jimmy Reed's "Take Out Some Insurance" successfully nails his trademark steady guitar beat. Strehli shifts into upbeat R&B mode in a heartfelt take of Little Milton's "More and More" where she stretches the singing. The obscure gospel nugget, "I Wouldn't Mind Dying" by Dorothy Loves Coates gets a rousing rendition thanks to backing vocals by The Sons of the Soul Revivers. She's most committed in her only original on the album, "SRV," a tribute to her old friend, the late Stevie Ray Vaughan. Ace Of Blues manages the not inconsiderable feat of being a tribute to past influences with performances that are so vividly in the present.

TRACKLIST

1. Angela Strehli - Two Steps From The Blues
2. Angela Strehli - Person To Person
3. Angela Strehli - Ace Of Spades
4. Angela Strehli - I Love The Life I Live
5. Angela Strehli - You Never Can Tell
6. Angela Strehli - Gambler's Blues
7. Angela Strehli - Howlin' For My Darling
8. Angela Strehli - Trying To Live My Life Without You
9. Angela Strehli - Take Out Some Insurance
10. Angela Strehli - More And More
11. Angela Strehli - I Wouldn't Mind Dying
12. Angela Strehli - SRV



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