Showing posts with label Renee Austin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Renee Austin. Show all posts

Monday, September 16, 2024

Reneé Austin - Dancin' With Mr. Blue

Album: Dancin' With Mr. Blue
Size: 106,9 MB
Time: 46:15
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 1997
Styles: Blues/Soul
Art: Front, tray, cd

1. Little Bit A Texas (3:10)
2. Calling It Quits (4:18)
3. The Accused (7:07)
4. One Man (3:26)
5. Lonely Road (3:23)
6. Pillow (4:23)
7. It's All A Game (5:07)
8. Catfish Woman (3:49)
9. Heartless World (3:04)
10. Swing (3:10)
11. Dancin' With Mr. Blue (5:14)

While she's by no means a straight-ahead blues artist, vocalist and songwriter Reneé Austin has great potential to bring many new fans to the idiom. Attractive, intelligent, and a good showperson, Austin was born in San Diego and raised in Texas, growing up steeped in Texas roadhouse blues and soul-blues, as well as gospel music. Sweet Talk, Austin's 2003 debut for the San Francisco-based Blind Pig Records label, has been very well received. Austin grew up in Kingsland, TX, and began singing as a toddler. Encouraged to continue singing by her parents, by the time she was a teenager she'd written her first few songs. Austin sang at school and in church, and by her later high-school years she knew she'd like to try singing and recording for at least part of her living. She counts among her many singing influences the great female blues and soul vocalists, including Aretha Franklin, Etta James, and Tina Turner.

After moving to Minneapolis during her college years, she began performing in that city's lively blues club scene and released her first album, Dancin' With Mr. Blue, which won kudos from the Minnesota Music Academy and won an award for Best Blues Recording. She was also recognized as Best Female Vocalist and Best Blues Artist, and Austin began opening shows for Robert Cray, Delbert McClinton, and Lonnie Brooks when they made tour stops in Minneapolis. Austin teams up with vocalist McClinton for a duet on "Pretend We Never Met" on her debut. The two hooked up in Nashville to record the track, written by keyboardist Bruce McCabe. Austin's debut showcases seven of her originals, Joanna Cotten's "When Something Is Wrong," and two songs by producer Kevin Bowe. Stylistically, it runs the gamut from slow, sultry ballads like "Fool Moon" to the more rockin' roadhouse blues-belting numbers like her duet with McClinton and "Pour the Sugar Slowly."

While future recordings from this talented singer/songwriter may be more focused, it's ok for this up-and-coming singer to show off on her first internationally distributed album, to show radio programmers and blues festival booking agents what she's capable of. She's already shared festival and concert stages with Jonny Lang, Blues Traveler, Big Head Todd & the Monsters, and Keb' Mo'. If she can avoid burning herself out with the grueling tour schedules that so many blues performers seem to keep, good things are in the offing for Reneé Austin. A second album, Sweet Talk, was released on Blind Pig in 2003, followed by Right About Love in 2005, also on Blind Pig Records. /Biography by Richard Skelly, AllMusic

Dancin' With Mr. Blue mc
Dancin' With Mr. Blue gofile

Reneé Austin - Sweet Talk

Album: Sweet Talk
Size: 104,0 MB
Time: 45:02
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2003
Styles: Blues/Soul
Art: Full

1. Not Alone (4:03)
2. Pretend We Never Met (3:52)
3. When Something Is Wrong (3:30)
4. Pour The Sugar Slowly (3:51)
5. Bottom Of A Heart (4:00)
6. Fool Moon (4:50)
7. Bury The Hatchet (4:18)
8. Unraveling (4:40)
9. Bitter Water (3:56)
10. Ain't Nobody (3:58)
11. Black Pearl (4:01)

This Texas by way of Minneapolis blues/jazz/soul belter's first nationally available disc made a substantial impression out of the box in late 2003. It received major press attention and was nominated for a W.C. Handy Best New Artist Debut award. Even a cursory listen shows why. Austin's tough, husky growl can be as gutsy as Tina Turner or as tender as Maria Muldaur. Although her stunning duet with Delbert McClinton on "Pretend We Never Met" is one of the album's obvious highlights, it's by no means the only striking track. The soulful "When Something Is Wrong" recalls Ann Peebles' Hi label work and Austin gets downright nasty on the grinding sexy funk-rock of "Pour the Sugar Slowly."

Incorrectly pigeonholed strictly as a blues artist (probably due to her Blind Pig label affiliation), Austin is closer to a classic R&B vocalist in the tradition of Etta James and Turner. Also impressive is that the multi-talented musician - who plays guitar and piano live - was responsible for penning all but four of these tunes, an unusual accomplishment for a female singer. Her writing is sharp and diverse as she shifts gears from the gospel fervor of "Bottom of a Heart" to "Fool Moon"'s bluesy jazz lounge mood, just two songs that display her impressive range.

Far from scattershot, Austin's talented band and the disc's smart pacing display her strengths without sounding as if she's giddily jumping genres. Like McClinton - an obvious role model - her presence is so powerful that she's comfortable in a variety of grooves and, at least on the basis of this album, succeeds at all of them. /Hal Horowitz, AllMusic

(For personnel details, see artwork included.)

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Sweet Talk gofile

Sunday, September 18, 2016

VA - If This Is Love... I'd Rather Have The Blues

Size: 116,5 MB
Time: 49:51
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2004
Styles: Electric Blues, Blues Rock
Art: Front

01 Jimmy Thackery & The Drivers - Cool Guitars (3:40)
02 Debbie Davies - Wrong Man For Me (4:58)
03 John Mooney - Brand New Woman (4:07)
04 Studebaker John & The Hawks - Two Time Boogie (3:56)
05 E.C. Scott - Before Quick Can Get Ready (4:48)
06 Chris Cain - Middle Name Is Trouble (3:03)
07 Big Bill Morganfield - Left Alone (2:52)
08 Renee Austin - Bury The Hatchet (4:16)
09 Lloyd Jones - Treat Me Like The Dog I Am (3:32)
10 Nick Curran & The Nightlifes - Shot Down (3:06)
11 Chris Cain - You're The Kind Of Woman That Ain't That Hard To Find (4:15)
12 Arthur Adams - Who Does She Think She Is (3:31)
13 Jimmy Thackery & The Drivers - You Came Back To Me (3:41)

You can't ignore the sexy packaging that graces the cover of this budget compilation of Blind Pig blues artists. Evidently it must be difficult to grab the attention of blues fans without this type of eye-catching gimmick. Well, as far as the music goes, If This Is Love...I'd Rather Have the Blues contains 13 decent previously released tracks from Blind Pig Records with a heartbreak, romance, and don't-get-caught theme including LLoyd Jones, Jimmy Thackery & the Drivers, Debbie Davis, Studebaker John & the Hawks, Renee Austin, John Mooney, Big Bill Morganfield, and Chris Cain. Let's hope labels like Blind Pig will stick to signing passionate blues players and releasing budget-priced comps to attract listeners without the need to use sexy promotional campaigns. ~ by Al Campbell

If This Is Love... I'd Rather Have The Blues

Monday, September 12, 2016

Renee Austin - Right About Love

Size: 96,4 MB
Time: 41:04
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2005
Styles: Electric Blues, Blues Soul
Art: Full

01. Mouth Of The Delta (4:16)
02. Harder Than It Has To Be (3:25)
03. Right About Love (4:18)
04. U-Haul (3:11)
05. Thank You Card (3:51)
06. Meant To Be (3:11)
07. Strangers On A Train (4:34)
08. Bugs (2:54)
09. Chicken Coop (4:45)
10. That's All Right (3:20)
11. Mister Cowboy (3:15)

Guitarist, pianist, songwriter, and powerhouse singer Reneé Austin calls her mix of rocking R&B, blues, and country "roadhouse soul," and it's an apt description of the energy and passion she brings to the table. She's been marketed as a blues singer, which is unfortunate, in a way, since her driving live show brings her closer to someone like Tina Turner, adept at bringing a gospel intensity to material that is really more hard-rocking country-soul than it is blues. On Right About Love, her third release, Austin continues to deliver the electricity that made her previous albums so striking, and it should be noted that she wrote most of the material here, including the fine opening track, "Mouth of the Delta," and the soul-searching title tune, "Right About Love." She covers Bobbie Gentry's "Bugs," as well, and it's a telling choice, since Gentry ended up similarly trapped between genres, part country and part pop, when in retrospect, she was really doing a kind of intelligent and gothic version of Southern soul. Austin isn't quite in Gentry's league as a writer yet, but if she continues to graft Bobbie Gentry-like detail to that powerful, hoarse Tina Turner-like voice, as she does here with "Mouth of the Delta," her energetic mix of country, soul, and blues should find -- if the world is at all fair and balanced -- an audience similar to the one that an artist like Bonnie Raitt enjoys. ~by Steve Leggett

Right About Love