Kara Grainger "Grand and Green River" Heaven & Hell & Blues You Can Feel
“I would rather feel things in extreme than not at all.” ~ Bonnie Raitt
“The blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the irrepressibly human over all circumstances, whether created by others or by one's own human failing.” ~ Ralph Ellison
“The musicians that didn't know music could play the best blues. I know that I don't want no musicians who know all about music playin' for me.” ~ Alberta Hunter (American blues singer who achieved international fame in the 1930s for her vigorous and rhythmically infectious style, 1895-1984)
“Blues means what milk does to a baby. Blues is what the spirit is to the minister. We sing the blues because our hearts have been hurt, our souls have been disturbed.” ~ Alberta Hunter
Kara Grainger plays a great guitar and sings from someplace deep inside. I've seen her play live at Busby's in a big house with a small crowd, and she brought the songs from the soles of her feet. She sings every song with the spirit of the blues whether it's a 12-bar or a folk song. I heard that from the stage and I hear it on this album. I talked to her just once by chance when she came out to support another artist and friend. We had a brief conversation, but I told her I'd seen a video that day of Bonnie Raitt singing a duet with John Lee Hooker, and Bonnie Raitt had described singing with John as a sexual experience. Kara didn't flinch. She told me she had done four takes in the studio of a song that day, and everybody was ready to move on. She insisted they do it again, because, as she put it, there "wasn't enough sex in that song." That song is on this album, but I don't know which one she was talking about.
Every song on this album has feeling from the gut, and none of that fancy showing off she could do if she wanted to. That's exactly the difference between that high school prodigy seems to sing the blues so well and Kara Grainger, Alberta Hunter, Bonnie Raitt, Ethel Waters, and anybody that matters with a mic in their hand. There's a little bit of church and a heaping ladle of hot stuff in this music. The assertion of the irrepressibly human over circumstances makes it blues as a statement of quality, regardless of the chord progression. The focused power of the song is as irresistible as it is irrepressible in Kara Grainger. She's just too damn alive to do anything less.
These songs move me, and I'll be damned if they don't move Kara Grainger. I think those musicians sound like they are feeling something. I wrote about what I felt in these song reviews. I got an email from another guy who writes about music tonight. He's got a radio show, with boxes of CDs he doesn't want to listen to. I know the feeling. But I sent him a link to Kara Grainger. I wasn't just being mean. I think this music will wake up a man whose feeling a little dead. That's what the blues is supposed to do. This album worked for me, and I'm feeling more than I have in a week. This is Monday. I'm looking forward to the music now. Kara sung me back to life.
THE SONGS:
1. WHAT YOU WANTED (Kara Grainger/David Kalish/John Fisher/SLIM)
They say, "Be careful what you wish for!" That's a warning. This song tells that story with sass and wisdom: "What you wish for come falling down on you." The tone of this song is set by the acoustic intro sounds like a rickety cart with a pin loose in the axle as it might be played on the front porch in The Delta or The Bayou. Life can happen everyday, but normally doesn't for people with more goals than heart. "Diamond rings and pretty things, a closet full of fine clothes that don't mean a thing / Working too hard can leave you blind / Everything you want you can find." I've heard it said any goal can be reached, but getting "want you wanted" may not be getting want you want when you get it. Life doesn't wait to live. "Climbing up that ladder / Tell me when you gonna ever be satisfied." The only way to sing this song and make any sense is to be full of life, spunk, sass, and funk — otherwise, it don't mean a thing. Alberta Hunter, Bonnie Raitt, and Miss Grainger can sing this one and make it a song. Lee Thornburg has that same sass in the horns for Tower of Power, and he brings it here as well. The arrangement dips down to the simple and reaches for the sky. It's all it needs to be to make me want to be a little more alive even sitting at the computer typing out this review. That Joel Guzman on piano and Jeff Young on Hammond can play all day and I wouldn't be tired.
Kara Grainger ~ Electric & Lead Guitar Craig Eastman ~ Mandolin David Kalish ~ Electric Guitar Joel Guzman ~ Piano Jeff Young ~ Hammond Mitch Grainger ~ Harmonica Reggie McBride ~ Bass Gary Ferguson ~ Drums
2. ON MY WAY (Kara Grainger/David Kalish/SLIM)
Alberta says "Blues means what milk does to a baby," and I looked up that quote while watching TV trying to avoid the music. I'm in a funk. TV didn't help. I trust Alberta Hunter, since she inspired Bonnie and I knew that Kara could move me if I let her. If a blues singer doesn't work when you are in a funk, you need to get a new record. Miss Grainger does not disappoint. She's hurt inside and has a secret soul just like I do. I want to hide, and she's written a song about that very same feeling. I can't feel alone listening to her, even if I want to. I miss my mother, but she's off in the next world. I'm thinking about Mom listening to "I'm on my way back home." Maybe that's a song about another kind of homecoming, but I don't care what the songs about if I'm hearing what I feel. "I'm on my way / I'm on my way / I'm on my way back home." I don't know if that's gospel, but it'll do. Amos Lee sings the duet on that song. Right now here in Northside sitting at my computer that's a church song with Mother's Day coming up. I miss you, Mom!
Thanks, Kara. You helped me feel. I'd rather feel extreme than not feel nothing. Guess I'm alive. Dead men don't cry.
Featuring Amos Lee Kara Grainger ~ Slide Guitar David Kalish ~ Acoustic & Dobro Joel Guzman ~ Piano Jeff Young ~ Hammond Reggie McBride ~ Bass Gary Ferguson ~ Drums
3. CANNOT BE DENIED (Kara Grainger/David Kalish)
I'm taking this week to feel the blues. That's a good thing. "The blues is easy to play but it's hard to feel" -- so said Jimi Hendrix. Any high school kid can play three seventh chords. Kara Grainger is a pretty girl, plays guitar very well, and she was born with a great voice. All that doesn't mean a damn if it doesn't move me. I don't want to be impressed today. Lord, the list of musicians on this album makes me shiver. But that's just a bunch of people with brilliant careers if they don't move me. I remember listening to Bonnie Raitt's "Love Has No Pride" over and over and over. That song shut me up and made me feel something I had hidden away in a dusty room somewhere in my heart. I could not deny the feeling, and that singer felt it too. Some feelings cannot be denied. "Sweet love cannot be denied," is a line that hits me today. It's a little rainy outside, and Kara is singing, "Silver lightning shining on a field of green / After the rain has come to wash us clean / C'mon give to me one more chance to understand." I've lived the life of loss for a good long time. I've felt that, and it's still there. Guess Kara and I know about that. You too? "Sweet Darling you can try but you cannot catch the moon / Just let it go, welcome in the sun / Tell me what's on your mind, let the words flow like wine." I remember a line from a favorite poem about music like that one. It's Auden writing about a song when he says, "Pour out your forgiveness like a wine." Once again, I'm feeling more from listening. Kara sings: "Sometimes love, well it's much too strong babe to be denied / Cannot be denied, let it flow down like wine, sometimes love it cannot be denied / Sweet love it cannot be denied." That repetition is soothing and it takes my resistance away. I'm thinking of someone. There's love in that. I can't deny it.
Kara Grainger ~ Acoustic Guitar David Kalish ~ Dobro Joel Guzman ~ Accordion Barrie Maguire ~ Bass Pete Thomas ~ Drums
4. DREAMED I WAS THE DEVIL (Charlie Terrell)
"Last night I dreamed I was the devil, in a bright polyester suit!" Now, that's not a church song: Too honest. "You and I, we will fly to New Orleans and find ourselves a God fearing man." Hey, it's just a dream, right? The sass in this song is dangerously seductive. "If there's no one left to stop this sort of thing, we will drive to Las Vegas and wash our hands." There's a brilliant wink to goodness in the backing vocals, like they might be feeling a little uneasy: "Straighten up and fly right!" But there are no rules in dreams. Kara answers that she will "fly to Las Vegas." There is a movable feast of little cool sounds in this fantasy. It's almost enough to make me feel mischievous. Almost! (Wink.)
Kara Grainger ~ Acoustic Guitar Jeff Young-Hammond, Wurlitzer & Clav Reggie McBride ~ Bass Richie Hayward ~ Drums..
5. I'M GOING TO LIVE THE LIFE I SING ABOUT IN MY SONG (Thomas A. Dorsey)
After that last song, a little repenting may be in order. Thomas Andrew Dorsey was a blues pianist known as Georgia Tom, but he's also called "the father of gospel music." He wrote "Take My Hand, Precious Lord," which was performed by Mahalia Jackson and was a favorite of Martin Luther King Jr. This particular hymn sounds like maybe it was part of his transition, or salvation, or change of career. The backing singers do a great job on this one singing like a gospel quartet or The Five Blind Boys From Alabama. This is pretty much a blues song, working on becoming gospel in this version. The shout chorus at the end seems to say in jazz "Oh, yeah" or if it's gospel that would be "Amen." The title is long and says most of what this song is about. I have to wonder if Kara sings this as a statement of what she believes about singing, but there's no point "going to church and pray all day Sunday / Go out and get drunk and raise sand on Monday." Sand? Hell! That wouldn't be the word I would have chosen. Kara's voice is remarkable on this one. The band is playing at a "tote that barge, life that bail" pace, and she's got remorse down to the core. "I've got to live the life I sing about in my song." It doesn't sound like that yoke is easy, and burden is light. Not in this version anyway.
Arrangement by Reggie McBride David Kalish ~ Electric Guitar Joel Guzman ~ Piano, Hammond Jeff Young ~ Hammond, Wurlitzer & Clav Reggie McBride ~ Double Bass Gary Ferguson ~ Drums
6. SKY IS FALLING (Kara Grainger)
This might be a song about life on the road. "My body's shaking and I just can't see / Looks like this world's got the better of me / Working so hard and it's driving me mad / In just one night lost everything I had / Sky is falling." Nobody ever said it was gonna be easy. "I should've listened what my daddy said." My father told me he didn't support me when I went to Art School, because he didn't think that work was going to support me. Guess that was love, but it didn't feel like it. Suffice to say, you don't have to be on the road singing to feel like that. Everybody feels that from time to time. You made a choice, and it isn't everything you ever wanted. Who doesn't think that from time to time. Misery loves company. The chorus joins in a little loud on this one like they mean it. Who doesn't feel that, keep it to yourself.
Kara Grainger ~ Slide Guitar David Kalish ~ Acoustic Guitar Craig Eastmen ~ Mandolin Jeff Young ~ Piano, Hammond Mitch Grainger ~ Harmonica Reggie McBride ~ Bass Gary Ferguson ~ Drums
7. HOLDING ON (Kara Grainger)
This one has that intimate feeling like Love Has No Pride. "I cried an ocean over you, the more I gambled the more I had to lose / If I'm coming home, show me you care." Love is a gamble, and this song makes that point more than once. One great bluesman was heard to say about life in music, "It's a long road." This song says it too. "One way is a lonely road into the unknown / The other is a long road / So many miles from my home, many miles / Holding on . . ." The slide guitar whips the truth out of this song, and Kara takes that emotion for herself. Stuart Hunter tells the story including a little "time passing" figure on the piano when it seems home is so very far away. "Holding on, while we slip away, I can't take it no more / Relight my fire it burns so deep / I need your love." This song says it the way people talk when they are weary. It's easy to hear, and hard to feel.
Kara Grainger ~ Slide Guitar Stuart Hunter ~ Piano, Hammond Jonathon Zwartz ~ Double Bass Hamish Stuart ~ Drums
8. BRING ME BACK (Kara Grainger/David Kalish/SLIM)
"Take a look around, what you cryin' for, nobody really knows anymore / Tell me why you're never satisfied, there's never enough / In this little room I tried to make you see how much I love you." There's hope in the music, but the pain is strong. "Everytime you over-analyze, clouds in your head and tears in your eyes." This doesn't sound like a writing exercise. Sounds like love.
Kara Grainger ~ Electric Acoustic Guitar Val McCullum ~ Electric Guitar Barrie Maguire ~ Acoustic Guitar Jeff Young ~ Piano, Hammond Dan Rothchild ~ Bass Jacob Cook ~ Percussion Tom Breckline ~ Drums
9. SECRET SOUL (Kara Grainger)
Now, here's the song so simple I have no resistance to it no matter what. Kara doesn't play smart or fancy, and she doesn't write to impress. She just gets it right. "But I will keep you safe inside, in my secret soul / In my secret soul, to have and to hold / In my secret soul." The song builds from that acoustic guitar and voice with an accordion that sounds like honesty, and voices like the hope of angels fill the room. It's a beautiful thought, and a beautiful song.
Kara Grainger ~ Guitar Joel Guzman ~ Accordion Barrie Maguire ~ Bass David Leach ~ Percussion
10. STUCK IN LOVE (Kara Grainger/David Kalish/SLIM)
This one is a jazzy blues song with the gift of a declaration of love coming out of the blue. "There's a drunken parade in my head, ghosts of the past dreams of the future / and good things that never last, empty bottles scattered on the floor / Nothing seems to work anymore." Lee Thornburg's horn arrangements are spot on when it comes to this kind of thing. He's felt it before. This song complains about a good thing. 'I'm still in love, I'm stuck in love, I'm stuck in love with you." Kara's guitar has a little BB King in its sights this time out. She hits the mark with the blues and a sense of humor. Now she's in love, but that's a tough one with the other out to "follow your dreams." It's a broken heart song, but the music feels good and loud like a night on the town. Those with happy relationships have probably left the concert early. This one is for those that stay to the end.
Kara Grainger ~ Electric Guitar Joel Guzman ~ Piano Jeff Young ~ Hammond Reggie McBride ~ Double Bass Gary Ferguson ~ Drums
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Horns arranged by Lee Thornburg Lee Thorn burg ~ Trumpet, Trombone Paulie Cerra ~ Saxophone Background Vocals ~ Arnold McCuller, David Lasley, Ernie Halter, Sky Nichols, Lara Goodridge
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