Larry Hamilton, a singer/songwriter who might be best known for a self-titled 1997 NYNO CD produced by Allen Toussaint, died December 28, 2011. Born in Galveston, Texas, March 23, 1951, he moved to New Orleans as a youth. At the age of seven, he began taking piano lessons with Ray Charles as his major influence. [...]
Tag Archives: singers
YouTube du Jour: Etta James
January 20, 2012 – 12:54 pm
The R&B/blues singer Etta James died this morning at the age of 73 due to complications arising from leukemia. She was the greatest of Chess Records’ female singers, and had been inducted into the Rock & Roll, Blues, and Grammy halls of fame. Peter Keepnews reviews her career in his obituary for James at The [...]
YouTube du Jour: Luke James
January 11, 2012 – 2:46 pm
The 2012 Essence Music Festival lineup was announced this morning, and among the list of local artists is a name most people hadn’t heard before this past fall: Luke James. With the homepage WhoIsLukeJames.com and Twitter handle @WhoIsLukeJames, James knows fans are probably curious where he came from. But the St. Augustine grad (real name: [...]
Vin Bruce, Dans La Louisianne (Bear Family Records)
January 1, 2012 – 12:56 am
Columbia Records signed Vin Bruce in 1952, making the 19-year-old the first Cajun to ever sign a contract with a major label. It was his beautiful French originals that attracted the record company, who recognized the potential of a Cajun country artist after Harry Choates garnered national acclaim with “Jole Blon” in 1946. Between 1952 [...]
Kathleen Lee, Coming Up For Air (MTT Records)
January 1, 2012 – 12:53 am
Many of us in New Orleans have listened to Kathleen Lee’s swing music show on WWOZ for years. What a nice surprise, then, for us to hear her sing on this debut disc. If some of the covers (“All of Me,” “Fever”) are a little shopworn, other cuts are anything but ordinary. Her powerful take [...]
Ryan Foret and Foret Tradition, Let the Groove Move Ya (CSP Records)
January 1, 2012 – 12:51 am
When I was coming of age along the Northeast shoreline during the 1970s, my favorite local band was Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, a horn-laden R&B outfit spawned by the fertile music scene in Asbury Park, New Jersey. The Jukes’ first album, I Don’t Want to Go Home remains a blue-eyed-soul masterpiece to this [...]
Ruthie Foster, Live at Antone’s (Blue Corn Records)
January 1, 2012 – 12:50 am
Ruthie Foster has a cult/fanatic following. People either have never heard of her or they think she has one of the best voices of our time. Her new CD Live at Antone’s shows why her voice has received such notice. It is husky and soulful but never overdone. She wails at the top of her [...]
YouTube du Jour: Sarah Quintana
December 22, 2011 – 1:10 pm
Sarah Quintana is an unsung singer in New Orleans, with a haunting voice and an ear for a pretty melody. A NOCCA grad schooled in jazz guitar, she sings original folk-jazz compositions and French chansons. An album of her work is much overdue, and Quintana hopes to change that with her current Kickstarter campaign, looking [...]
Burke Ingraffia, Jazz Animals (Independent)
December 1, 2011 – 12:52 am
“If you want to play it smart / you’ve got to dumb it down,” Burke Ingraffia sings on Jazz Animals, and that sentiment looms over the album. “Checks and Balances” is an extended riff on the language of finance as he sings about how small his bankroll is, while “Dreaming in Code” examines how thoroughly [...]
Big Pearl, Double Faces (Independent)
December 1, 2011 – 12:47 am
The band name and cover art are pleasantly misleading. They suggest that this will be more in the Janis Joplinesque mode that singer Lani Ramos initially made her calling card, but that’s an unforgiving measuring stick. Double Faces starts there with “Shake That Junk,” but it quickly moves in less predictable directions. “It Goes Away” [...]
