Buddy Guy feat. Mavis Staples, 'We Go Back,' Sony ****

Track of the day is 'We Go Back' new from Buddy Guy drawn from The Blues Don't Lie. The album released this autumn has its fair share of top of the tree luminaries featuring with the great Buddy (86) besides gospel and R&B icon Mavis Staples - …

Published: 9 Oct 2022. Updated: 19 months.

Track of the day is 'We Go Back' new from Buddy Guy drawn from The Blues Don't Lie. The album released this autumn has its fair share of top of the tree luminaries featuring with the great Buddy (86) besides gospel and R&B icon Mavis Staples - Elvis Costello, James Taylor, Wendy Moten, Jason Isbell, Bobby Rush. Song of dogged belief 'We Go Back' a paean for the days when the paper, coffee and ''pack of smoke'' were cheap - you could drink ''mad dog wine'' and, brutally, it was a time scarred by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King on a balcony in Memphis in April 1968. The song features a sizzlingly real turn of vocal gravity from Staples all gravelly and gathered up that engrosses us most. Buddy delivers a masterclass of timing and priceless feeling of all-round weightlessness that keeps us hostage.

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Judith Owen, Come On & Get It, Twanky ****

Hearing this takes us back to a first exposure to Judith Owen at super Soho club Crazy Coqs when the singer came on unannounced as a guest with the erstwhile Jimmy Scott pianist Jon Regen, oh, around 6 years ago. So what do we have, this time? The …

Published: 7 Oct 2022. Updated: 19 months.

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Hearing this takes us back to a first exposure to Judith Owen at super Soho club Crazy Coqs when the singer came on unannounced as a guest with the erstwhile Jimmy Scott pianist Jon Regen, oh, around 6 years ago.

So what do we have, this time? The fully fledged Owen owning it all that's worth saying first of all. Retro, vintage sounds, hip, effortless, pick any of these adjectives. A 1950s vibe it's luxe all the way. Shivering at home deciding whether to eat or switch on the heat? Fear not the heat and the jazz snacks are all here to dispel any feeling of gloom. You're a long time dead.

Certainly camp - meaning everything is sung as if in double quote marks or at least with a wink and mucho gusto - fun is not a banned word. Mannered in a period sense, full of joie de vivre and mischief the album was recorded in a New Orleans studio. Highlights there are many: Go for the exuberant Welsh woman's take counterintuitively perhaps so slowly captured navigating the Sonny Burke, Peggy Lee song 'He's A Tramp' also covered by Melody Gardot and Janelle Monáe in recent years.

Feelgood all the way - few albums romp along as merrily as Come On & Get It. Definite-Lee why not another album to add to the marlbank best vocals jazz albums of the year list. And you might just think looking at the label's name Twanky Records that the pantomime season has arrived especially early this year. It probably has.

Further Owen reading - everyday divas' top isolation tips introducing Arianna Uniboobolos and Dame Notting Leica

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