Joanne Shaw Taylor – Songs From The Road
CD-12 songs time-76:34
DVD-15 songs time-139:00
British transplant Joanne Shaw Taylor, now based in Detroit, U.S.A., delivers mostly heavy-handed guitar-based music with plenty of guitar acrobatics on this CD-DVD recorded live in London . She fires off lightning-fast notes effortlessly. At times she sends forth floating, soaring and melodic solos that remind one of Robin Trower. Her vocals are of the soulful tough-gal, husky and raspy variety. At times her delivery makes some of the lyrics indecipherable. Her capable rhythm section provides the necessary muscle power to support the attack. Keyboard player Jool’s Grudgings supplies the other soloing capabilities quite nicely. This package also contains a DVD of the same show. It includes ten of the songs from the CD as well as five different ones.
The most prominent style here is portrayed in songs like “Soul Station”, “Watch ‘Em Burn” and “Kiss The Ground Goodbye”, among others. These consist of speed-freak guitar runs served-up with a jaw-dropping dexderity with bent notes flying around like a machine gun barrage. The high points in this performance for me come when Joanne reins in her guitar-killer tendencies ands puts forth these beautifully soaring Jimi Hendrix-Robin Trower like guitar solos. She rightly showcases this on a lovely cover of Hendrix’ “Manic Depression”
I won’t take the time to describe each song here. There is much of the same throughout. Guitar lovers will find much to savor here, mostly guitar pyrotechnics strung together.
One nice diversion is her treatment of the British blue-eyed R&B master Frankie Miller’s “Jealousy”, where Joanne digs down deep to deliver a reading from the soul accentuated by some soulful guitar that grows in intensity.
The DVD features some different songs, plus it gives you the chance to see Joanne flail her long, lovely blonde locks to and fro as she attacks her guitar. She also happens to be easy on the peepers.
If your a fan of this genre she is quite something to behold to the ears and eyes as she assaults the guitar strings. It isn’t “Blues” by any stretch of my imagination. There is no doubt that there is a major talent at work here. As my old pal Batman used to say-“Each to their own said the lady as she kissed her cow”.
