New Music 2017 - Part 27 - Kashena Sampson - Wild Heart

I suppose that in a curious way and not least because I have never been there, East Nashville and the artists that have taken up residence there have had quite some influence on my musical existence for the last few years. Here is another whom, starting in Las Vegas, via LA and jobs that at best kept the wolves, if not necessarily the demons, from the door that was in time followed by a long stint singing to cruise ship audiences every night.
Then came the time spent bar-tending in Tennessee whilst trying to raise funds and find time to record. That is some apprenticeship. This is that LP:

Kashena Sampson - Wild Heart (New Moon Records, 18 August 2017).

It's too early yet for me to decide just how this stacks up against the competition, and there is plenty, but it is fair to stay that Kashena Sampson is very much in the running. Her vocals are strong, that's definitely one thing. This is probably an album I'm going to have to keep dipping in and out of for some weeks before I really can get the measure of it and quite how it works for me.

Kashena Sampson - Wild Heart:

• Away from Here
• It's a Long Way Back
• Greasy Spoon
• Wild Heart
• She Shines
• Never Give Up
• Motherless Child
• Hold Me Close
• That Don't Sit Too Well with Me
• Come Back to Me

The King is dead. Long live the King.

When BB King was born into a life of poverty 'blues' was a curiosity, if even that, unnoticed by the classes that "understood" music. It was simply something black people did to amuse themselves and their kind. There was no mass market for it and therefore no money to be made.

That little of Robert Johnson's early playing, in relative terms, survives is testament to that. BB King came to prominence at the cusp of the change in Civil Rights and regardless of race or colour to a market that few might have imagined. He didn't stop there - until last October he was touring with relentless fervour. Goodness knows how many he inspired along the way, from Clapton et al to many far more recent recruits - it was, I'm thinking, his lifelong mission.
When it came to young women playing blues - well I guess that is something that he would've approved wholeheartedly too.

Without him this would in all probability never have happened at all.
'Wild Heart' is released by Ruf Records on 29 June.

I should perhaps mention that she is playing Southampton Blues Festival (a single-day indoor event) on 27 June 2015 at Southampton Engine Rooms.