HOT DEBUT
AMERICA'S BLUES MAGAZINE
ISSUE NO. 52 NOVEMBER 1999
HOT DEBUT
This Bay Area vocalist plays it low-key on her first release, a spirited mixture of originals and classics
CATHY LEMONS BLUES BAND: "Dark Road"
SALOON 1997
Though she was born and raised in Texas and recorded her first demo with Anson Funderburgh, Cathy Lemons is best known as a veteran of the Bay Area scene. This stunning debut combines traits of West Coast blues into a vibrant, confident album, one of the best from a female blues vocalist in a long while. With bass by her longtime musical collaborator, Johnny Ace, and guitar duties shared by pros like Steve Freund, Tommy Castro and Rusty Zinn, Lemons turns in a steaming set of blues that just won't quit. Her five originals mingle with creative covers from Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters, Junior Wells and Magic Sam. Though her arrangements don't differ remarkably from traditional blues standards, Lemons' flexible voice, ranging from low-down and sultry to growling and threatening, is never less than striking. There are traces of Susan Tedeschi, Debbie Davies, Marcia Ball and Lou Barton but Lemons has staked out her own distinctive territory somewhere between Texas and San Francisco on her first Album.
It is surprising that an artist can take hoary blues chestnuts like "Rollin' and Tumblin," "Good Morning Little Schoolboy," and "Little By Little," and make them sound fresh again. Lemons grabs these staples, wraps her husky, dusky vocals around them, lets her band have plenty of room and delivers sturdy (if not quite revelatory) renditions of three classics. There's an assured, unhurried, vibrant quality to Lemons' voice that projects just the touch of a torchy edge (especially on the lost Chess soul gem "Dirty Man") , a smidgen of danger and a pinch of pining hurt.
There are few vocal gymnastics, though her octave shifting performance on the self-penned title track, a slow, sad shuffle, exhibits how fierce Lemons can be when she digs deep into a lyric. With a voice this shimmering and rugged, there's no need for showboating common to singers who confuse volume with intensity. Which makes "Dark Road" a burnished, scintillating disc and certainly one of the finest debuts from a contemporary female blues singer this year.
HAL HOROWITZ