Cecilya & The Candy Kings – Back In 1955
Meseta Records
8 Tracks – 29 minutes
Cecilya Mestres was born in Barcelona in 1992. According to her mother, she came home from school at age 3 with a brochure from a music school and announced she wanted to sing. After much insistence, she attended numerous music classes and piano lessons and never stopped singing even while in school. She trained in musical theater and complemented her efforts with vocal training teachers in Barcelona and London. In 2015, she moved to Mallorca and started busking in the streets, which allowed her then to move into indoor venues. She fronted two bands – one doing R&B and the other country style blues.
In 2017, she appeared on a television show. That led to the attention of the Buenos Aires Blues School and the Blues in Movement Association and a subsequent tour in Argentina. From there she lived and toured in Austria and Germany starting in 2019 and ultimately decided to move to Paris and start a rock & roll band. In 2021, she released her first solo record. Which leads to the release of this new album containing eight original songs written in the style of 1950’s R&B.
The band consists of Cecilya on vocals, Rudolphe Dumont on guitar, Paul San Martin on piano, Jorge “Jafo” Otero on double bass, Adrian Carrer on drums and percussion, and Sax Gordon Beadle on tenor and baritone sax.
The opening song identifies the things that “kept people smiling” “Back in 1955”, a bopping tune with guitar and piano runs that will also make you smile. Cecilya’s voice is certainly in tune with the era with an occasional growl. Next up she has the place jumping as she announces “I’ll Take You to the Party” with the sax getting everyone bouncing around.
A swaying mambo identifies that she is “From Barcelona”, which “feels like paradise” as she identifies all of the wonderful things she loves about the city. She moves into a deeply sultry mood as the sax whines with some excellent moody guitar and piano on the atmospheric jazz tune “Evening” where she cries “my baby’s gone”. “Wild Souls” brings the energy to an all-out rocker where she identifies herself as a “wild child”.
Dumont’s guitar leads a slow blues shuffle as she pleas “Don’t Leave Me in the Darkness”. She gets things rocking again as Cecilya begs for him to “Gimme One Night” with the baritone sax blending with Dumont’s guitar. The album closes with a funky “What About Love” and a bouncing piano and another nice guitar run rounding out the album.
Cecilya’s vocals are always appealing. Her band delivers an album that is certainly nestled in the 1950’s but speaks to you in modern terms. It is a fun and pleasant album that leads one to hope for more.
