An excellent confluence of factors make Shannon McNally’s new record of Bobby Charles tunes a record to which you can listen, sing along, and even dance. The first is Bobby Charles himself. He is a quintessential unsung artist both in his own records and his songs. Everyone from Clarence “Frogman” Henry to Fats Domino, Ray Charles to Kris Kristofferson has sung one from his pen. The upbeat numbers are the most familiar, but Shannon McNally covers some of the ballads too. [iframe class=”spotify-right” src=”https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify:album:08hHiEJt3WhxisbiqQBueu” width=”300″ height=”380″ frameborder=”0″ allowtransparency=”true”]Buy on Amazon
Buy on iTunesHer singing here is tender on “I Don’t Want To Know,” especially on the line “Please don’t make me go to New Orleans no more.” She starts off funky with the lead-off track “Street People,” and keeps defiant with “I Spent All My Money.” The material fits her cross of blues, country, and rock and is consistently great. At points she sounds like the blues momma side of Bonnie Raitt or country soul of Shelby Lynne. Her take on “String of Hearts” may be the best singing she’s done. And the backing band of Dr. John and his Lower 911 inhabit these songs like they were born in them. The late, much-missed Lower 911 puts many New Orleans and South Louisiana grooves on these, reminding listeners how they were some of the best at this essential type of music. And Dr. John and Charles were tight from their early days in the New Orleans recording scene, so he has a great knowledge of how this music sounds. Putting this all in the Dockside Studios in Maurice which is not far from Charles’ last stomping ground probably helped give it the extra sauce that oozes out of your speakers, but it would have had that if it were recorded in Idaho.