Review: Karen Lovely – Still The Rain
Karen Lovely – Still The Rain
Format: CD / Digital / Label: Pretty Pear Records
Release: 2010
Tekst: Tom Wouters
In 2010 Massachusetts-born blues singer and songwriter Karen Lovely (1959) released a hidden gem album called Still The Rain. Lovely, the eldest of nine siblings, had begun her singing career in the local church choir. In 2007 she started to sing the blues professionally and released her first album, Lucky Girl, in 2008. She and her band claimed the second place at the 2010 International Blues Challenge. Still The Rain was received to great critical acclaim. She was nominated for several blues music awards and even was chosen as best female vocalist at the Muddy Waters Awards.
Karen Lovely recorded Still The Rain at Dawwg House Studios at Burbank, California under the production of Dennis Walker and with the help of the Dawwg House Rhythm section (Lee Spath – drums, Richard Cousins – bass, Jim Pugh – organ and piano, Alan Mirkitani – guitars). The album consists of ten songs in which Karen Lovely fully displays her bluesy vocal performance as few female vocalists before and after her did. She sings with a smooth phrasing that slightly remind you of Bonnie Raitt, but with a rough bluesy edge and therefore far more unsophisticated, as to be heard in the album opener Blues Ain’t Far Behind and in the sensational ballads Sunny Weather and Still The Rain. Cold Man Cold is blues rock followed by the absolute highlight of the album, the lost love ballad Other Plans, with a ripping tenor sax solo by Michael Vannice.
Ask Your Heart is straight forward blues rock again and with (Loving You Is A) Full Time Job there is a real tearjerker. In Glad You’re Gone, Never Felt No Blues and I’ve Had Enough Lovely and her band keep up the high standards.The highly critical acclaim Still The Rain got mentioned the huge talent of Karen Lovely as a blues singer of extraordinary class, as she proved in the seven years, three albums and numerous live performances to come.
After Still The Rain three more albums were to follow, Prohibition Blues (2014), 2015’s Ten Miles of Bad Road and Fish Outta Water in 2017. The albums gained great critical acclaim and in between Lovely and her band toured successfully through the United States. In 2017 she toured across North America to promote Fish Outta Water. And from that moment on, there has only been complete silence. It is as if Karen Lovely has left the planet. Her website, admittedly still on line, gives no clue about her whereabouts.
Tracks:
01. Blues Ain´t Far Behind
02. Sunny Weather
03. Still The Rain
04. Cold Man Cold
05. Other Plans
06. Ask Your Heart
07. Full Time Job
08. Glad You´re Gone
09. Never Felt NO Blues
10. I´ve had Enough
11. Older Fool
12. Knock Knock
13. So Willing
Website: https://www.karenlovely.com/