Artist:     Marcia Ball

Album:     Shine Bright

Label:     Alligator Records

Release Date:     4/20/2018

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Shine Bright sure lives up to its name, with Texan/Louisiana-raised keyboard wizard Marcia Ball delivering 12 tracks packed to exploding with her raw, raucous and rollicking boogie-woogie chops and powerful voice. Ball is always a pleasure, with each successive release simply cementing her position at the top of the good-fun-feeling blues end of the spectrum. This is music with edge, clever lyricism and an excellent bunch of backing musicians. Irresistible, toe-tapping stuff that positively roars along firing on all cylinders.

Ball’s last effort, Tattooed Lady & the Alligator Man, was an equally impressive album, full of her trademark keyboard chops with their swampy, Louisiana drive and delight. With Shine Bright, she again works a similar vein, slipping into a more reflective, soulful side-stream from time to time.

This marks her seventh release on Chicago’s Alligator label, and Ball, of course, picked up a well-deserved Grammy back in 2010 for her Alligator release, Roadside Attractions.  Although Shine Bright is unlikely to mirror that 2010 success, it remains an absolutely wonderful, high-octane release, well worth discovering. An album with an inbuilt repeat at its very core, Ball is firing full-on again, as we have come to expect these days.

—Iain Patience