Guitarist and singer Joanna Connor, originally from Massachusetts, moved to Chicago in the mid \u201880s. After a steady workload of area club gigs, she played in the house band at the Checkerboard Lounge on the Southside, where she shared the stage with Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Otis Rush, Sammy Lawhorn, Pinetop Perkins, Hubert Sumlin, Magic Slim, Son Seals, Lonnie Brooks, and Koko Taylor. Breaking out on her own, she launched her debut album Believe It<\/i> on Blind Pig Records in 1990. Connor is a traditional-sounding blues musician who wields a voice in the alto range and favors mid-tempo tunes for her renowned slide guitar playing. Besides Derek Trucks and Johnny Winters, no one on the blues circuits has relied on their slide guitar playing to satisfy the audiences cravings as much as Connor. <\/p>\n
This year, Connor released 4801<\/i> South Indiana Avenue,<\/i> produced by Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith, who also arranged the material and plays on much of it. The album is named for the address of legendary Chicago Bronzeville blues club Theresa\u2019s Lounge, which closed in the mid \u201880s, and is on Bonamassa\u2019s boutique blues label \u201cKeeping The Blues Alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fourth track \u201cI Feel So Good\u201d exemplifies what Connor does best: bringing the band down to a hush and showcasing her playing in the sonic spaces. The entire album\u2019s musical support for Connor is perfectly suited to the genre and ranges from carefully orchestrated horn section work, some great organ playing, pocket-perfect drumming, and sympathetic rhythm guitar playing. The song \u201cPart Time Love\u201d recalls the full Butterfield Blues Band excursions and features a nicely restrained guitar solo from Bonamassa. \u201cCut You Loose\u201d combines the harder-edged British blues band feel of the \u201870s invasion by the likes of Savoy Brown and the Climax Blues Band with Connor\u2019s fierce vocals and aggressive slide playing. Lowell Fulsom\u2019s \u201cTrouble Trouble,\u201d an Otis Rush classic, features some nice T-Bone Walker styled intro guitar. Connor takes the Albert King classic \u201cFor The Love Of A Woman\u201d and switches the subject\u2019s gender with a big horn section carrying the up-tempo tune on \u201cFor the Love Of A Man\u201d with some nice stops to open up the room for her slide playing. \u201cCome Back Home\u201d by Theodore Taylor features Connors\u2019 best vocal performance on the album. <\/p>\n
While the album, Connor\u2019s fourteenth, was recorded at Ocean Way Recording Studios in Nashville, Tennessee, it\u2019s really a celebration of Chicago blues at its best. Every song was recorded in three takes or fewer, and all feature Connor on \u201ceffect-free\u201d guitar and vocals, Calvin Turner on bass (who also arranged the horn parts), Reese Wynans on keyboards, Lemar Carter on drums and co-producer Josh Smith, and Bonamassa on additional guitars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":34323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10653],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-46158","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-joanna-connor","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46158","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\/96"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46158"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}