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When Paula and the Pontiacs get it right, they get it very right. “Everything I Need” plays to all the band’s strengths—its ability to nail a barroom R&B groove, and Paula Rangell’s personable voice. When she sings a ballad, you believe her, and “Quiet Country Night” and her cover of Earl King’s “Your Love Means More to Me than Gold” are sung like thoughts accompanied by music more than lyrics to a song.
Louisiana Bride isn’t always that spot-on. The Latin-esque “Benny’s Bar” is clearly a heartfelt tribute to a bar that you oddly don’t hear much said about anymore, but if you were never there, there’s nothing in the song but a list of names to let you know why you should care. That aside, the album’s reliably solid roadhouse music; it’s music for beer drinking and dancing, and it fits that bill admirably, whether shuffling to Big Maybelle’s “My Country Man” or hitting a swamp funk groove on the title track.
It has been 10 years since I saw Paula perform at The Tyler Blues Festival on a cold windy night on the square….. Most of the less hardcore blues fans had gotten cold and gone home but being as fortified with Bourbon as I was, I stayed on to see her perform and buy her CDs….I talked her into taking a check and she said she had never taken a check from anyone for CDs and if it bounced she was going to frame it to show others why she won't take a check….. She is a great singer and musician that I hope to be able to see on stage again some day…..