Candice Ivory - When The Levee Breaks- The Music of Memphis Minnie (2023) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

The Memphis-raised and St. Louis-based Queen of Avant Soul, Ivory hails from an illustrious Memphis family that shaped the city’s secular and sacred sounds. Her great-uncle was the singer/guitarist Will Roy Sanders, whose band, the Fieldstones, was one of the premier Memphis blues groups from the 1970s to the ‘90s. On October 6, 2023, she releases her collaboration with singular guitarist/bassist Charlie Hunter, When the Levee Breaks (Little Village Foundation) – a midnight run to the crossroads where jazz, blues, gospel, and R&B all converge.

Ivory shines a brilliant light on one of the blues’ greatest artists: Memphis Minnie. Ivory had long planned to record an album of Memphis Minnie’s music, but the stars didn’t align until 2023, which happens to be the 50th anniversary of her death at the age of 76. The crucial factor was Ivory’s budding friendship with Hunter, a player similarly steeped in jazz, soul, and Delta blues. Ivory notes, “I loved and respected my great-uncle Will Roy Sanders, but I was also looking for women role models in a very male-dominated field. As a working musician while still in high school, I had an epiphany when I visited Memphis Minnie’s grave in Walls, MS, just a few years after Bonnie Raitt purchased a headstone for the long-unmarked plot. I was amazed to discover that Minnie’s grave had been transformed into a shrine by all the visitors from around the globe. That made an unforgettable impression on me, yet she’s mostly unknown.”

When the Levee Breaks: The Music of Memphis Minnie features some of Minnie’s best known tunes, like the title track, famously covered by Led Zeppelin. In Ivory’s and Hunter’s hands, the song turns into a primal, percussion-driven invocation harkening back to Oshun and Afro-Cuban orishas. They also bring a similarly imaginative spirit to another Minnie hit, “Me and My Chauffeur Blues,” a roadhouse boogie honoring the joys of the open road. “That tune plays in my head like a movie,” Ivory says. “It’s so apropos. I took this road trip to see her grave and years later, Charlie and I found a way to make road music.”

TRACKLIST

1. Candice Ivory - Me and My Chauffeur
2. Candice Ivory - When The Levee Breaks
3. Candice Ivory - You Can't Rule Me
4. Candice Ivory - When You Love Me
5. Candice Ivory - Blues Everywhere
6. Candice Ivory - Crazy Crying Blues
7. Candice Ivory - World of Trouble
8. Candice Ivory - Pile Driving Blues
9. Candice Ivory - Hole In The Wall
10. Candice Ivory - Hard Down Lie
11. Candice Ivory - HooDoo Lady
12. Candice Ivory - New Bumble Bee



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