Wendy and DB – Back Home
Tigerlily Music
15 Tracks – 44 minutes
Chicago based Wendy Morgan and “Darryl “DB” Boggs have been working together for about twelve years recording what they call family friendly music. But each have a longer history of music behind them prior to their present duo. Wendy has always been singing and writing music, which led to her first album release in 1996. When her son was three years old, she started teaching voice lessons and moved into writing and recording music for children. Her voice has been heard on many tv commercials. She also made cameo appearances in movies and appeared on the soap opera Days of Our Lives.
Darryl has been a professional musician for over 40 years. He taught band and choir in Chicago area schools and retired in 2015 as band director for the Lindop School in Broadview, Illinois. He continues to develop music for cabaret and orchestra as well as working with Wendy on their music, which includes many charitable events to aid non-profits and developing special music projects with for school groups and community choirs.
The duo released their first album, Pockets, Seasons, Rhymes and Reasons, in 2013. Back Home is their sixth album release. In between, their albums have garnered numerous awards for their efforts on behalf of their work for children and family values. In 2023, their fifth album, Into the Little Blue House, received a Grammy nomination. The duo plays guitar and provides vocals to the album and brings in many guests to help authenticate a traditional blues sound suitable for the family and delivers a folksy sound that can be enjoyed by young and old.
Ruthie Foster joins them on vocals with Anne Harris adding violin on the title track, which preaches the value of community. The duo teams with Doug MacLeod who performs guitar and vocals on “Come to Your Senses” as they tell everyone to “use their common sense”. Sharde Thomas and her Rising Stars Fife and Drum Band guests on “Put Down the Phone”, as Wendy proclaims, “get off the sound, you are like a zombie”. Billy Branch plays harmonica on “Moving Mountains” which references Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks who helped move the freedom bells and challenges others to move obstacles to fulfill their goals.
“Boxes and Labels” is a brief spoken poem urging people to not place others in wide-ranging categories and encourages understanding. “Butterflies are Free/Muhammad Ali” tells the story of the famed Louisville boxer and his own fights to be free. Delta blues vocalist Libby Rae Watson sings and plays a National resonator guitar with Bill Stuber on harmonica as they sing when “things are not going well” just “Hum Away”. “Hemingway The Wonderdog” features Kenny “Beady Eyes” Smith on drums which is certainly one song mostly focused on children and the virtues of a dog. Billy Branch on harmonica and Kenny on drums on “Reflection” asks you to “look at yourself…all your prejudice is just ego and pride”. Doug MacLeod returns on “Move Them Bones”, a story of a dog moving his bones.
Bob Dylan’s “Watching the River Flow” again features Libby Rae Watson, Doug MacLeod and William Stuber on harmonica. Next Wendy and DB praise their long-time “Friends”. “Be You/ Walk to Your Own Beat” offers some African styled rhythms from the Rising Stars Fife and Drums. The piano of Roosevelt Hatter Purifoy leads “Peace in the Valley” where we can all “find hope for a better tomorrow” and “hate can be washed away”. The album closes with a brief reprise of the title track.
DB cites that the album brings memories of childhood visits to his grandmothers’ homes in the south “sitting on their front porches, surrounded by the sights and sounds of nature, I found music in the simple, moments of life”. Yes, the songs are simple, but they bring quiet, restful appeal for those who want to just slowdown from all of the distractions that exists in our tumultuous lives today. There are certainly a few songs more pointed to youths, but most are for those of us who strive to find the youth that is still left in us.
The album’s back cover notes that 10% of all of the proceeds from this album goes to The Blues Foundation.
