This is music from the American Southwest, from Texas, from Louisiana. There is a metal component, there are guitars and drums that others can only dream of, and there is a female vocal that is unique to the American music scene, it is found no where else. It’s a boogie-woogie sound; it is that brand of Southwest music that is unique to the American landscape. And musicians who call America home perform it.

Marcia Ball is from the Texas – Louisiana border. She grew up to a certain kind of music, and she performs that same kind of music. It doesn’t have that Gothic thing going, but it does have that brand of American soul that is found nowhere else. It combines the soulful sound of the Texas plains with the Zydeco music from Louisiana with the Blues from Chicago, all wrapped up in a music that is singularly American. You get the solid guitars and drums backed by a sax from hell. Put that together with the other instruments that accompany this CD.. . and then put them together with a complementary female voice that is straight from Texas. . . and you have music that is truly American.

This is music you listen to late at night, with a good bottle of Jack. It takes you to places you want to go, it provides you with topics you want to explore, it reminds you of the hurt in life and why you move beyond those times. Marcia Ball is a long legged blond with a talent on the keyboards, and a familiarity with music that can only be learned in certain parts of the deep American Southwest. You can hear this music in the bars in the American South, you better be ready to live with the American redneck because this is what he listens to on his better nights, when he wants to listen to the best. Marcia talks about life in America, the real America, where life has a certain vibrancy, where talk is important and what you say counts. It’s basic, it’s relative and it floats over a musical vehicle that is second to none. Marcia works with good people, strong musicians, people who understand this kind of communication.

Presumed Innocent begins with The Scene of the Crime. This is criminal music. We are going in directions beyond the law, and Marcia seems to be familiar with them. And the guitars seem to be very much familiar with the "sorry state we’re in". We know there’s been wrongdoing and Marcia tells us about it. Hers is a voice that has clearly seen hard times, and is willing to discuss them. The direction continues with You Made it Hard. Beyond the obvious connotation, we get a tale of soulful regret. Marcia goes tough with a tale of wrongful love. And, she has a tough counterpart in Delbert McClinton, a voice that has been tearing up the American blues landscape for decades. Delbert takes crap from no woman and their conversation reminds us of the sexual tension that has defined relationships since Adam and Eve.

Count the Days goes in a more traditional blues direction, but one with a Chicago twist. You get the sax here, the Chicago sound, it draws the blood; it talks in a way only Chicago Blues can do. We count the days here, the days that the blues can number, the days that only regret can recall. And, they lead us to the following number, Let the Tears Roll Down, which only further that Blues feeling. This is traditional Blues, what we learned from Chicago, passed on from the cotton fields in Mississippi. Marcia sings in that most traditional of American musical styles here. The background musicians serve up a sound that is straight from the Delta and nowhere else. We get it all; this is traditional blues, with a first class female vocal, Aretha Franklin at her best, but with a better background band.

Louella cranks it up a notch or two. This is what America rocks to. Louella books it, Marcia talks trash here, and the band backs her up. You want to rumble, this is where you bring it. Marcia works the keys here, the sax blows serious smoke and the drums and guitars back it up. You get this music in the deep woods in Louisiana, in the Bayou, where music is serious and you better agree or go home. That accordion is played by someone who knows his music and the people in attendance like it just fine. Louella is a certain kind of woman:

You know, I’m a Cajun at heart, my parents are Arcadian, I lived in the land. And Marcia seems to know the music pretty well. Thibodaux, Louisiana talks this reality, and it does it in some serious Bayou song. Not everyone can do this music, you don’t get it in Paris, and you don’t get it in Montreal. You get it in Thibodaux. And Marcia and the boys seem to know it well. The guitars crank up some serious background and the song takes us to the Bayou, where life is tough and wrongdoing is dealt with harshly. In this part of the world you better learn the rules, men and women. But, there is always the romance. Marcia sings:

But the blues are never far away, the Chicago blues, the blues from the heartland, from the cotton fields, where life was defined in its most basic format. I’m coming Down With the Blues takes us to that direction that was refined in Chicago. The sax drives the music, even as Marci works the vocals in that direction that defines a life of pain. But the Blues never stays down. The world goes up and down and the band follows that path with a rousing rendition of Shake a Leg. This is the sound that drove a generation of laborers to work with the expectation that it would all be worthwhile, sometime after 5 on Friday evening, when time was yours and you did what you wanted with it.

This blues direction continues with She’s So Innocent, a traditional blues number that features the vocals of Ms. Ball. This is where we really understand the female vocal in this production. Marcia Ball has a vocal capability that is unique to the American sound scape. We hear the pain; we hear the hope, the plaintive cry for understanding. This is life at its most basic state, with a guitar to remind us that there is a musical correlation when appropriately applied. Marcia sings. .

Music takes a lot of directions; we get all kinds. This site has a focus on the female gothic, a metal direction that has a particular kind of understanding, mainly in terms of message. It is traditionally a dark message, one that is driven largely by the music of Western Europe. But, there is other music out there, female music that is not necessarily different, more of a corollary to what we traditionally discuss. And, it is sometimes really good music. Marcia Ball is one of these alternatives. You get a different focus here, but, the music is still outstanding, the musicians are as good as it gets, and you get a little bit of the best of America. Can’t be all bad.

9 / 10