Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Joanne SHAW TAYLOR: "Wild"

Rating: RRR
Label:
Review by Martien Koolen

Taylor's The Dirty Truth, released two years ago, was a great blues rock album, produced by Jim Gaines, recorded in Memphis.

Taylor's new album called Wild, was recorded in Nashville and produced by no one less than Kevin Shirley. Wild contains 9 brand new tracks and 2 covers, being Wild Is The Wind, originally by David Bowie, and Summertime, originally by Ella Fitzgerald. Wild IS The Wind is the longest track on the album and clocks over 7 minutes and features two excellent emotional guitar solos and great vocals by Taylor. This Bowie track was also covered by Nina Simone, Randy Crawford and George Michael, but Taylor's version, altough I am not really a fan of covers, is without any doubt my favourite.

The other cover on Wild is the last track Summertime, which is also covered by Louis Arnmstrong; Taylor's version is a jazz-like piano ballad with a nice mellow guitar solo in the middle of the song.The rest of the song material on Wild is a mix of blues, blues rock, pop and sometimes even singer/song writing material. Ready To Roll is a nice funky blues-like mid tempo track with a very catchy chorus and nice guitar work.Wanna Be My Lover is a kind of Meilssa Etheridge-like song with organ passages and again some great guitar work.In fact the only "misser" on this excellent album is the song I Wish I could Wish You Back which is a rather mediocre acoustic ballad. Conlusion: Wild is a great blues rock/pop album and shows again that Taylor is a thrilling guitarist, but also a strong vocalist. Wild grows on you and proves that also women can play a mean and nasty guitar!! Looking forward to see and hear Taylor in The Netherlands during her autumn tour with Wilko Johnson.

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