Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
A Reckless Heart is easy to find, one with soul and creative joy oozing out of every moment it is held is rare, seldom seen but heard of in whispers, as if containing elements of myth and magic within its weaved grooves; for in every reckless heart that embraces the world with art there stands a sculptor and a surgeon fashioning the wounded nucleus of the body with extra compassion and spirit, one that gathers strength to sing, not whisper, of all that caused the rashness and wild to storm the streets and love all they came into contact with.
The Reckless Heart is one you cannot but help admire, for they are thrown into everything with seemingly endless passion. It is with hunger to keep on being at the top of the game, the tight grip on the art they seek to employ, recklessness is not an adverse reaction to the way we live now, but more of a statement to shine in the resonating view of the admiring gaze rather than be hidden away, untouched, unseen, never having your voice heard and your truth explored.
For Joanne Shaw Taylor, Reckless Heart is arguably a symbol of the decades- long hard work in which she has strived, and succeeded, in becoming the premier woman of British Blues, a journey that has taken her from the Midlands to being mentioned in the same knowledgeable tones as her American cohorts Joe Bonamassa, Dana Fuchs and Beth Hart as the modern face and ability of the genre.
Across songs such as In The Mood, The Best Thing, Creepin’, the exceptional I’ve Been Loving You Too Long, Break My Heart Anyway and the album’s closing proclamation of I’m Only Lonely, Ms. Shaw Taylor proves without hesitation that she fully deserves to be mentioned in the same exalted, often breathless Blues adoring tones, as any that have come before and been lauded as the saviour of the genre.
A musician’s Reckless Heart is to be nurtured, to be kept from falling down, but it must be allowed to seek out every opportunity in which the observation of their soul can mingle freely with the setting in which their song can flourish. It is a flourish, a generous but also modest swagger in which Joanne Shaw Taylor steps out and takes control.
Ian D. Hall