Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
To release a cover of a well-known hit song or personal favourite is considered a modern etiquette, the chance to acknowledge what has guided you, what has inspired you, what creativity has pushed you to the point where your own music is forever joined at the hip and acknowledged as a natural partner, is good manners and appreciated by artist and fan alike.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
The drive to silence the battle that goes on in our thoughts and in our heads is such that sometimes we may feel as if we are two different people fighting for supremacy over what may be considered right and wrong, what is best for us and the realisation that most of the time we want others to be in a position where they are also happy, even if it means we have to let go of our own wish list and potential desires.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The act of sensuality is not lost, it has not become driven out into the cold and left to starve in a parking lot somewhere off the Pacific Coast Highway, shrouded by the deep greens and ambers of trees spoiling for a fight against the depths of a winter to come, sensuality is always around, it just has been overshadowed by the unremarkable and insidious. It takes a rock star of breath-taking quality to break through the over sexualised hype, a musician of conviction whose voice is the calling card to have lyrics gush in embarrassment at the attention they receive.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
You can ask for many things in life, world peace, the end to hunger, humanity living side by side in genuine respect…the list is endless and in all honesty hardly likely to happen. You can though, and surely must always be allowed the privilege of hearing a Beth Hart album at some point during the busy weeks ahead. This is a pre-requisite for getting through Time, the chance to listen to a genuine female legend of 21st Century Blues Rock at her prolific best. This prolific, demanding the clearest mind’s attention nature is captured in true style with her latest release, Better Than Home.
This year has seen some incredible blues albums being released and the vast majority of them by women. This is not only great news to see the likes of Beverly McClellan, Beth Hart, Bonnie Raitt and Joanne Shaw Taylor take on the men at their own game but it also sees the new men of Blues raise their standards.
In a similar fashion the punk explosion of the 1970’s that musically threatened the old established figures , what is coming through is exciting and new and whilst led by Joe Bonamassa and some of the older guard like Robert Cray are still the Gods that every one aspires to become. This is no less true in the case of the exceptional Belfast Blues man Simon McBride.
Fear Nothing could just be an outstanding metaphor for Beverly McClellan’s life; the fact that she uses this inspiration as the title of her international debut album release shows not only how much she believes in her own mantra but also in the music that she has recorded.
American television programme The Voice may have given her national exposure but this is one woman whose work stretches back long before breaking a countrywide conscious with her very intelligent music and raw power in her sensual and honest bluesy voice.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It cannot just be by chance that music producer Kevin Shirley aligns himself with some of the most fascinating and brilliant people within modern blues and they don’t come much more fantastic than Beth Hart or her new album Bang Bang Boom Boom.
Following on from her collaboration with the man who makes blues seem effortless and instinctive, Joe Bonamassa, for the 2011 album Don’t Explain and her simply stunning album, 2010’s My California, Ms. Hart has once more come up with songs that are musically strong and reveal another layer to her virtuoso performances both as writer of intense feeling and also as a vocalist. Her intonation and deep desire in her voice gets underneath your skin and tugs at every resistance you may possess until you give over to her demands.