What
marked these early Blue Note albums out was the way in which her deep,
contralto voice was accompanied by stripped down instrumentation, using spare
combinations of bass, guitar, percussion, (sometimes lots of percussion),
clarinet, pedal steel guitar, violin and, on one track washboard and ash tray
usually singly, rarely in anything approaching a group format. This barren
instrumental landscape threw all of the focus on to her blues drenched vocals
as she slurred or dragged her lines, often very seductively. This languor
seemed to capture her roots in a lazy, sun soaked Mississippi.
Her
choice of material was another defining feature of these albums. Largely
eschewing the GAS (though her versions of Strange
Fruit and Skylark are well worth
a listen) for her own compositions or covers of songs by, amongst others, U2,
Joni Mitchell, The Monkees, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Robert Johnson and, on Travelling Miles, Miles Davis.
I
always regard these albums as the high water mark of her career as she set out
her stall as an individual performer working to her own strengths away from the
mainstream and jazz singer orthodoxy. Even though she stayed with Blue Note for
a few years after I suspect that nothing else she did landed with the same high
profile impact as Blue Light ‘Til Dawn in
1993. Dave Sayer
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