Joanna Connor – Live On 11/11
Well, the live performance certainly gets off to a rollicking, hot jam as the band warms up with high-octane musical gasoline & every member circles around with their lit matches. “Cissy Strut” has the quick-strike ingredients to ignite a show like this. All from Chicago’s masterful guitarist Joanna Connor, recorded live at The Fallout Shelter in Norwood, MA.
It’s a raw presentation, but the blues is not a Waldorf-Astoria-orchestrated showcase. Joanna has had a 36-year career in an unforgiving business. The majority of the 10 coals glowing in this set Live On 11/11 (Drops August 21/M.C. Records /63:58) are covers of classic blues. The musicianship teases as they play fiery & then soft as a wisp of smoke. The Elmore James oldie “Shake Your Moneymaker” is rendered as hot as possible without melting the amps.
Produced by Mark Carpentieri, the showcase has its excitement, a few slow, bluesy, aching tunes ala Janis Joplin. There are blistering moments in generous doses, & Joanna fires off the sparks without outwearing her welcome or bruising the guitar. Impressively applied.
One of the best is “Further Up the Road” with what I felt was a more creatively developed lead guitar. At this point in my life, I’ve heard every guitar solo approach in existence, but every now & then a player puts their fingers in exquisite places as Joanna Connor does. The blues often has a sameness about it, but there are moments when a guitarist like Joanna has notes that splash from her personality & possess her fingers. Some solos come from the amplifier & solos that come from the arteries in one’s wrist that get tuned on that guitar arm. And you hear the difference. It’s there.
The attraction on Little Walter’s “So Fine” is the superb Dan Souvigny (keys/Hammond organ) piano attack that fuses an intro to the circuitry of the guitar. Nicely played out as the band begins to stitch it all together tight, like the Paul Butterfield Blues Band 1966 track “East/West.” Joanna’s vocal percolates nicely.
Dan shines as well on “Magic Sam Boogie,” while the singing comes with grit & the soulful rawness of Genya Ravan of Ten-Wheel Drive, when Joanna turns a bluesy glow on “Are You Going With Me.” Listen to any perfectly tuned engine; it’s like a well-written song that purrs along with its instruments firing off notes like ignitions from spark plugs. Joanna has a good showcase; great guitar style & a finely tuned engine of a band.
Highlights – “Cissy Strut,” “Shake Your Moneymaker,” “The Sky is Crying,” “Further Up the Road,” “So Fine,” “Are You Going With Me,” “Magic Sam Boogie,” & “When the Levee Breaks.”
Musicians – Jason JRoc Edwards (drums) & Shaun Gotti Calloway (bass).
CD photo by Dan Busler. Color image by Maryam-Wilcher. CD @ Amazon & https://mcrecords.store/joanna-connor-live-on-1111 & https://joannaconnorguitar.com/