Ever wondered what it would have been like if, sometime around 1971, Tina Turner, Jimmy Page, Bonnie Raitt and Keith Richards had magically been merged into a single person — a young, black, guitar-slinging, soul-singing rock and roll goddess?<\/p>\n
Me neither. At least, until I first heard Danielia Cotton.<\/p>\n
That would have been in 2005, when I reviewed her debut full-length<\/a> Small White Town<\/i>. That disc was, in its own way, Cotton\u2019s musical autobiography, tracing her roots as one of seven black kids at the local high school in her small All of which is necessary background to Rare Child<\/i>, Cotton\u2019s major-label debut. (Granted, Adrenaline advertises itself as \u201cindependent,\u201d but they\u2019re distributed by Warner and feature multiple name acts.) This album, co-produced by Brad Jones (Jill Sobule, Over the Rhine), Joe Blaney (Shawn Colvin, Soul Asylum) and Cotton herself, assertively positions her as the next big black rock crossover artist, following in the footsteps of predecessors from Jimi Hendrix to Living Colour to Lenny Kravitz.<\/p>\n That might sound a little ambitious. And the sense of swagger is only reinforced when leadoff track \u201cMake U Move\u201d announces itself with the chant \u201c\u2019Cause I\u2019m a little black girl, gonna rock your world \/ So come one move with me.\u201d But like Reggie Jackson said, it ain\u2019t bragging if you can do it.<\/p>\n It takes maybe thirty seconds for \u201cMake U Move\u201d to storm the deepest recesses of your cerebral cortex, a throbbing, grinding statement of purpose that\u2019s pure blues-rock nitroglycerin. Lead guitarist Kareem Devlin doubles on clavinet, underwiring the chunky, Zeppelinesque guitar chords with a layer of power funk. The lady wanted to open with a statement \u2013 and boy did she.<\/p>\n Second song — and first single — \u201cTestify\u201d eases the throttle back a notch, pushing a strong melody over acoustic rhythm guitar and The title track is a thundering Cream homage supporting more autobiographical mission statement declarations (\u201cI\u2019m a rare child \/ Set to make history \/ I\u2019m a rare child \/ Just because I\u2019m me\u201d). The one cover tune here, \u201cDark Desire,\u201d feels like a lost Bonnie Raitt cut, showing off the gentler side of Cotton\u2019s vocals on the verses before blasting off into throaty r&b nirvana on the choruses. And \u201cBound\u201d is a dynamite closer, a slow-building blues-rock tour de force, soft and easy at first, all thunder and grind by the finish.<\/p>\n In between, Cotton stretches out with a couple of melodic rock and soul tunes in the Raitt vein (\u201cBang My Drum,\u201d \u201cRighteous People,\u201d) and a trio of sweetly rolling ballads (\u201cDidn\u2019t U,\u201d \u201cRunning,\u201d \u201cLet It Ride\u201d) that show off her gospel roots to strong effect.<\/p>\n Danielia Cotton has got the goods \u2013 an astonishingly powerful voice, a terrific ear for melody, and musical range that can take you from soaring gospel to chord-crunching blues-rock in a single three-minute song. With a major label behind her, the sky is the limit for a talent this big.<\/p>\n The one real issue I have with Rare Child<\/i> is, of all things, the art direction. The photo shoot done for this disc wouldn\u2019t be out of place in Vogue<\/i> \u2013 which means the high-toned visuals are completely out of sync with the earthy music, suggesting she\u2019d just as soon be a celebrity spokesmodel as a working singer-songwriter. The front cover of this album should be a cross between Maybe next time \u2013 because with the gift Cotton shows off here, you can bet there will be a next time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7235],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-40846","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-danielia-cotton","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40846"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}