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Product details
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Track Listings
| 1. Louisiana Blues |
| 2. Fingerprints Blues |
| 3. Driftin' and Driftin' |
| 4. Look Here Partner |
| 5. Moon Going Down |
| 6. Yellow Bee Blues |
| 7. Whiskey Head Woman |
| 8. Sit Down on My Knee |
| 9. Man I'm Lovin' |
| 10. Jinx Blues |
| 11. Come on in My Kitchen |
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Jo-Ann Kelly: Jo-Ann Kelly BGO Records BGOCD429
Recorded at various folk & blues clubs around the UK in the late 60’s by the founder of Yazoo & Blue Goose Records Nick Perls on a reel to reel tape machine this album (her 1st) showed Kelly at the height of her powers both as an stunning vocalist and as a virtuoso guitarist.
From the first shimmering guitar figure of ‘Louisiana Blues’ you are expecting the voice of the delta, a voice laden with the troubles of life, a black voice…a male voice, and, you get it! Kelly sings with all the emotion that we expect from the finest country blues men, the agony and pain it’s all there in her beautiful cracked voice and underpinned by her very fine slide work there have been few better covers of this song.
‘Fingerprints Blues’ is given a more easy ride with Jo-Ann gently strumming & bass running as she sings ‘I’m a good child but now I’m prison bound’ and you believe her despair as the law closes in.
Driftin’ And Driftin’ Is next up Hooker style complete with moans and slur’s that put you instantly in mind of the great man himself.
‘Look Here Partner ‘is the first of the two Kelly originals, taken at a medium pace it has the feel of early Bukka White, Kelly’s voice is almost as deep and world weary, you would not want to give this woman s**t ‘cause you know from that delivery that you would regret it (… and some).
‘Moon Going Down’ is a straight reading of the classic Charley Patton song and is sadly the weakest song with it’s strum and drang which allows little room for Kelly to improvise although, with that said, it’s not a bad song by any means.
‘Yellow Bee Blues’ does continue the strum and drang theme but is bullied up by Jo-Ann’s passionate delivery and the nice & simple guitar breaks at the middle and close.
‘Whisky Head Woman’ has Jo-Ann playing some lovely guitar figures and deceptively delicate slide.
‘Sit Down On My Knee’ is the second Kelly original and more up-tempo than the first, again it is a simple blues with a searchingly aching delivery that demands attention.
‘Man I’m Loving’ is given the full Hooker treatment (Kelly & Hooker were friends according to the sleeve notes) and works very well as a tribute to his style rather than as a mere pastiche.
‘Jinx Blues’ as with Patton’s ‘Moon Going Down’ is a straight reading of the Son House recording and an impassioned an urgent reading at that.
The Album closes with one of the finest versions of ‘Come On In My Kitchen’ that I’ve ever heard Kelly’s slide playing is superb and her vocal magnificent, breathtaking stuff. Indeed.
This was Jo-Ann’s 1st and only LP for CBS the deal died a death when she quit a US tour and cancelled a future tour with Johnny Winter due to emotional and physical exhaustion and returned to the UK.
She recorded another LP with Perls for the Blue Goose label but unfortunately this has yet to see the light of day on CD.
This is a vital LP in the History of British blues and should be in every fans library
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Writing in the Daily Mail many moons ago one James Greenwood wrote of British singer Linda Hoyle that `this is how Bessie Smith must have sounded had she been born at a different time' Well refer to the title of this review and you've got a similar evaluation of Jo-Ann Kelly.
Equally pertinent is the notion of blue men singing the whites, especially as this white British woman sang the blues with far more conviction than a host of more touted figures. The combination of her sometimes percussive guitar and declamatory voice on Tommy McLennan's `Whiskey Head Woman' tells you all you need to know in that regard.
'Fingerprints Blues' (credited to `McCoy' -I'm not sure if this is Memphis Minnie's one-time recording partner Kansas Joe McCoy) finds Kelly with a quality of lamentation in her voice which a lot of practitioners of the blues form simply wouldn't have cottoned on to, but then that's hardly surprising considering how Kelly made a lot of blues her own, so far did she get beyond the merely imitative.
That's a great help if a performer's going to cover anything by Charley Patton, especially as that man's often impenetrable Mississippi accent rendered a lyric unintelligible. Kelly gets inside the thing on a 12-string in a manner that few others could match, her voice sticking to the lyrical contours even as she stamps her own identity on it.
She should of course have been a national treasure, especially as she could keep musical company as fast as Mississippi Fred McDowell, with whom she recorded at the Mayfair hotel in London in March of 1969, but instead she was justly celebrated by those in the know. Join that elite group -albeit belatedly- by putting your hand in your pocket for this one.
Equally pertinent is the notion of blue men singing the whites, especially as this white British woman sang the blues with far more conviction than a host of more touted figures. The combination of her sometimes percussive guitar and declamatory voice on Tommy McLennan's `Whiskey Head Woman' tells you all you need to know in that regard.
'Fingerprints Blues' (credited to `McCoy' -I'm not sure if this is Memphis Minnie's one-time recording partner Kansas Joe McCoy) finds Kelly with a quality of lamentation in her voice which a lot of practitioners of the blues form simply wouldn't have cottoned on to, but then that's hardly surprising considering how Kelly made a lot of blues her own, so far did she get beyond the merely imitative.
That's a great help if a performer's going to cover anything by Charley Patton, especially as that man's often impenetrable Mississippi accent rendered a lyric unintelligible. Kelly gets inside the thing on a 12-string in a manner that few others could match, her voice sticking to the lyrical contours even as she stamps her own identity on it.
She should of course have been a national treasure, especially as she could keep musical company as fast as Mississippi Fred McDowell, with whom she recorded at the Mayfair hotel in London in March of 1969, but instead she was justly celebrated by those in the know. Join that elite group -albeit belatedly- by putting your hand in your pocket for this one.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I only saw Jo-Ann once - in a small basement club in about 1970 - and I was immediately hooked on blues.
I had forgotten how good she was. How lucky we are to have at least this CD to remind us.
I had forgotten how good she was. How lucky we are to have at least this CD to remind us.
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