Trudy Lynn Featuring Steve Krase – Royal Oaks Blues Café
Trudy Lynn Featuring Steve Krase – Royal Oaks Blues Café
Format: CD
Label: Continental Blue Heaven – Continental Record Services
Release: 2023
Release date: March, 2023
Born Lee Audrey Nelms in Houston’s Fifth Ward, Trudy Lynn comes from strong musical stock: the late Al “TNT” Braggs, one of Houston’s most electrifying R&B vocalists and a prolific songwriter for Bobby “Blue” Bland, was her cousin.
After a long and succesful career, which included European releases for Ruf and Isabel, Lynn entered into another longstanding label relationship with Connor Ray Music.
The late Jerry Lightfoot introduced her to label owner, harpist Steve Krase, and she was given the creative freedom to write new music while still recording select vintage covers, with dynamic results.
Her acclaimed ‘Royal Oaks Blues Café’ (2013) reached #1 on the Billboard Blues Chart and gets its long awaited re-release.
Trudy Lynn gives Steve Krase a starring role on Royal Oaks Blues Café and he does indeed shine throughout the album. He offers subtle support, sometimes slipping in to accentuate her verses, then he takes center stage for slippery, supple solos that bring a bit of Chicago to Lynn’s Texas blues.
Such casual bending of genre boundaries is one of the appealing things about Lynn’s latter-stage career: she’s absorbed all the shifts in soul-blues styles since the ’60s, so she can slide between sounds with ease.
There are rollicking roadhouse rockers like “Red Light” here but what gives this album such personality are the digressions into mellow, rolling soul (“Feel It”), funky R&B stomps (“Down in Memphis”), and even a sojourn into the Delta by way of Jimmy Reed (“Whip It to a Jelly”). Lynn is a master of every one of these sounds and so is Krase, so it’s a pleasure to hear them enjoy each other’s company.
Website: https://trudylynn.com/home
Tracks:
01. Confessin’ the Blues
02. Play The Honky Tonks
03. Feel It
04. Every Side of Lonesome
05. Country Man Blues
06. Street Walkin’ Daddy
07. Red Light
08. I’m Gonna Put You Down
09. Down In Memphis
10. Effervescent Daddy
11. Whip It To a Jelly
Tourdates 2023:
March 18 Fleurus (B) – Bonne Source
March 19 Utrecht Blues (NL) Tivoli
March 22 Vienna (A) – Reigen
March 23 Stuttgart (D) – Merlin
March 25 Burghausen (D) Jazzwoche
March 27 Ruiselede (B) – Banana Peel
March 29 Berghem (NL) – Cafe Roots
March 31 Gothenborg (S)
April 1 Oslo (N) – Young‘s