Artist:     Rory Block

Album:     A Woman’s Soul

Label:     Stony Plain

Release Date:     7.6.2018

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Rory Block, today’s best traditional female blues artist, has more work to do. She would probably tell you that she is “semi-retired,” having reduced her touring schedule and having completed what she was once felt might be her final recording project, The Mentor Series. Yet, Rory, “The Messenger of the Blues,” has plenty of fiery inspiration left and the backing of a label that insists she keeps going. Hence, she is embarking on a new “Power Women of the Blues” series, kicking it off with the forebearer of female blues singers, The Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith. Bessie was the first major blues and jazz singer on record and one of the most powerful of all time. Even on her first records in 1923, her passionate voice penetrated through primitive recording quality. In her time Bessie Smith simply had no competition.

One of the immediately striking aspects of this record is that Rory mimics the sounds of horns with her slide guitar. After all, guitar was not the main backing instrument for Bessie, it was generally small horn ensembles. She and engineer Rob Davis, create a tremendous sound simply by using guitar and an array of percussion as they did on her last record for the rhythm section. This quote, excerpted from the last record, holds true here as well. “After wailing away on the ‘guitar bongos’, plastic storage and boxes of Quaker Oats with wooden spoons and plastic salad forks… When I came back in the studio the oatmeal box sounded more like a bass drum, the wooden spoon like a crisp rim shot, plus various deep toned snares and edgy congas. The different intensities of the poundings had morphed into an incredible variety of tones.”

Rory first heard Bessie Smith’s voice in 1964 as a teenager living in NYC. “Filled with grit and incredible vocal prowess, it was the ultimate soulful wail.,” she recalls. ‘I’m wild about his turnip tops, I like the way he warms my chops, and I can’t do without my kitchen man…Stay away from my door Mr. Landlord, ‘cause I’m down in the dumps!..That’s the reason, I got those weepin’ willow blues.’ So compelling, so honest, so rich with meaning and information about the female soul.” Later Rory goes on to give credit to Maria Muldaur, Bonnie Raitt, and the late Jo Ann Kelly for keeping the music of the pioneering female blues women alive.

These ten tracks contain Bessie’s most immortal tunes like “Kitchen Man,” Gimme a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer,” “Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl” and “Empty Bed Blues.” Mixed in are some less familiar ones such s “Do Your Duty,” “Jazzbo Brown from Memphis Town,” “Black Mountain’ and “On Revival Day.” Rory conveys the unabashed Bessie Smith approach in those salacious tunes, saying, “It’s important to me to mention Bessie’s outrageously sexy material, her fearless, jaw-dropping delivery, her unapologetic presentation of women as the powerfully sensual, sexual beings we know we are – but that society just didn’t know ho to admit in the early 1900s. Bessie’s material was never dirty, it was just plain sexy.” Take those comments as a summary vibe for this album too.

Rory Block, as you’d expect, has done Bessie proud. Although it has not been revealed who follows in the series, the liners hint toward Memphis Minnie, Mattie Delaney, Ida Cox, Bertha Lee, and, of course, Ma Rainey. As tantalizing as that seems, settle in. Enjoy Rory’s take on Bessie’s amazing songs.

—Jim Hynes