ROXY PERRY
Back in Bluesville
Blue Perry Hill Records
BLUES REVIEW MAGAZINE OCT./NOV. 05
Being the "New York Blues Queen" - a title Roxy Perry either adopted or accepted on her 1998 album of the same name -might not be the hardest distinction [+]ROXY PERRY
Back in Bluesville
Blue Perry Hill Records
BLUES REVIEW MAGAZINE OCT./NOV. 05
Being the "New York Blues Queen" - a title Roxy Perry either adopted or accepted on her 1998 album of the same name -might not be the hardest distinction to claim. But this leather-clad vocalist has the kind of voice and delivery that could save her throne if Gotham did suddenly get flooded with distaff blues singers; her sound is full, smoky, dark, wise, worldly, and genuine. Most modern "blues queens" are cartoonish parodies of the big blooze mama archetype, but listen to "Midnight Train," which shares more than a word of its title with Patsy Clines's "Walking After Midnight" - like Cline, Perry sounds simultaneously resigned and determined, as if sultry laments were at once a vindication of her struggle and her sexuality. Listen with the corner of your ear, and it sounds as if she's packing up and leaving town; listen with your own pain, and it sounds like a suicide note. How many female blues singers still know how to do that?
The brand of blues Perry works on her third album is mostly urban, moody, and polished (It's filled with sax and piano). But she covers a lot of ground inside those parameters, going for big-band on the title track, boogieing on "Two Left Feet," tightening up the funk-rock genre on "Stone in the Sea," and incorporating Booker T.'s "Green Onions" into "Forgive and Forget." Backup comes from a crack band of locals, with Dave Fields and Tim DeHuff's guitar matching her anguish note-for-note.
She has a way with a phrase, too, taking what could be ordinary stories of love among the barflies and selling them with a clever and utterly honest turn of phrase: She's looking for the "Whole Dog," you understand, "not just a piece of tail." Seldom has the cherished female trophy of commitment sounded so sexy. Perry's voice is just that impressive; it's a rough yet feminine wonder that attempts to carry the tradition of prewar torch singing into the modern age..... Back in Bluesville offers evidence that, whatever the scene is like, she's earned her crown.
ROBERT FONTENOT
Blues Revue Magazine
Issue No. 96 OCT/NOV 2005
www.bluesrevue.com
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