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![]() Marcia Ball (from the album Shine Bright available on Alligator Records) Texas roadhouse Blues and New Orleans Funk headed into the studio with Marcia Ball to record Shine Bright. Though based in Austin, Texas, Marcia Ball rules a territory that reaches over land to the sea. She wears the crown of Queen of Gulf Coast piano boogie and on Shine Bright offers a hatful of musical gems recorded in Austin with local musicians and band members and in Louisiana Cajun country backed by bayou heroes Roddie Romero and the Hub City All-Stars. Produced by Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), Shine Bright achieves the goals set by Marcia Ball. She fulfills her desire to make create meaningful music and make it move, admitting that ‘it is a ridiculously hopeful, cheerful record’ confessing that her secret is ‘to set the political songs to a good dance beat’. On a personal side, Marcia Ball shoots for simple goals on a Crescent City R&B groove with “I Got to Find Somebody” as Shine Bright quiets to let in the light of a better tomorrow on a global level for “World Full of Love”. There is history for women and pianos in Marcia Ball’s family, and in her formative years she blended ancestral history with marquee musicians of the time, hearing the music of Little Richard and Fats Domino as a target she was looking to hit with her own playing. She landed in Austin in 1970, falling for the city and cancelling plans for a San Francisco destination. Around the same time, she heard Professor Longhair, setting up her style as she set up a new home. Shuffling in with pride for choosing the right direction Marcia Ball takes joy in the decisions of “I’m Glad I Did What I Did” as she opens her umbrella and strolls down to the parade in “When the Mardi Gras is Over”, tributing the music that has given her lifelong soundtrack in “Take a Little Louisiana”. Shine Bright basks in the glow of funky riffs as it circles the sun on the title track while it drifts south to dial in Caribbean rhythms on “Life of the Party” as Marcia Ball advises to grab and give away the gold ring in “Once in a Lifetime Thing” and rumbles in on barrelhouse beats to roll out memories with “They Don’t Make ‘Em Like That”. Listen and buy the music of Marcia Ball from AMAZON http://www.marciaball.com/ https://www.alligator.com/
1 Comment
4/26/2018 01:21:28 pm
Hoping WESU is on the mailing list to get a copy of Shine Bright!
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