Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Keep The Blues Alive, a mantra for our age in which audiences around the world are demanding that though the times have changed beyond recognition, our aural appreciation of the moment is unblemished, that it is still receptive to the chord and strings which make up passion, the preservation of the music past, and embracing what is to come, but that it must not be allowed to wither away, to become muted, to lose not only its voice, but its grandness, its emotional resonance on all our souls.
There have many Queens of the Blues to whom the genre owes respect and consideration. Even in the modern day there are those to whom the listener surely will acknowledge have practically not only kept the genre going but enhanced it to a place that was arguably unrecognisable as the turn of the Millennium approached.
Not so much as being part of the mix, but as wearing the crown with honour, Joanna Connor, the Chicago-based artiste and singer-songwriter, reigns supreme, and in her latest album, 4801 South Indiana Avenue, produced by the King of Modern Blues, Joe Bonamassa, the sense of history is not only confined to the album title, but to the sheer strength of will and passion that sees tradition take centre stage and belief as its overwhelming star and guiding light.
It takes genius to recognise and push the virtuoso to a place where they might not recognise themselves or the power they now wield, but that is exactly what this music marriage made in Nashville has provided for the listener, a spiritual sharing of experience, of a combined pursuit of the finest they can both be, one in the producer’s chair, the other being a titan with all that she requires to be as creative as she wants, to be as bold and dynamic as her heart will take her.
We all need that one person who will push us to a place we have never been before, or perhaps ever imagined we would inhabit, if we are fortunate then such a time would announce itself and we also could walk the walk and talk the talk as elegantly, as eloquently, as Joanna Connor does throughout this new album.
Through tracks such as Come Back Home, I Feel So Good, For The Love Of A Man, the excellent Cut You Loose, and the stunning finale of It’s My Time, Joanne Connor, the band, and of course Joe Bonamassa, stretch the boundaries of what has gone before and produced an album of authentic and timely Blues which sees the third decade of the 21st Century gasp in wonder, in appreciation for keeping the Blues alive.
Joanna Connor releases 4801 South Indiana Avenue on February 26th on KTBA Records.
Ian D. Hall