The voice is experienced and compassionate, well-practiced in traditional bluesy gospel riffing. And riff she does, throughout, in a most expert manner. The beats lay it down real solid, as only technological machine precision can do. Some of the instrumental melodic accompaniment would benefit to perhaps be a little less canned, cheesy MIDI sound, attempting to emulate true horns, strings and such. Some of the tunes’ patches do it better than others.
Recommendation: For easier meaningful retention and understanding via read-along by the listener, include the printed lyrics.
Let’s take a brief word ride through each track:
- Theatrical, MIDI-horn circus intro opens Jenny’s Groove, with an overt touch of fun corn, morphing and resolving into a ‘let’s get down to it and do it now’ basic beat—put your hands together to start this show! I do not understand what the repeating words are of the lyric.
- Fairy Tales will henceforth be known as ‘Once Upon a Time.’ Dreamy, with an interesting unpredictable key change and good build-up into soaring singerland at the crescendo end. Maybe rethink to go this slooow so soon in the record, especially following on the rouser intro track. But here it is, for over 5-minutes… the pensive, plucked violin anticipates the inevitable rhythmic groove landing into this soft-rockin’ slow blues. Semi-angelic vocal performance riff-croons well throughout, with liberal vibrato.
- A strong Stevie W-inspired riff-groove simmers nicely in Hi. The hi-hat and bass keep it cookin’, while Jenny rides atop with her signature blues-gospel vocal stylings. If possible, would be nice to add one or two really punchy high vocal accent spots. But as this lead vocal goes high, typically the stretch tends to thin out her otherwise full voice.
- The Bible-sourced Corinthian quote opens the vocal on Take Me There. Most of this one stays in the purely pentatonic blues melody, with plenty of title repetition. The waaay low bass thumps consistently under it all, flirting with dissonance. Some fancy instrumental flourishing here and there.
- It seems to start out at a bit louder level than prior tracks. You’re All I Ever Wanted again showcases Jenny’s expert riffing ability, in a slowish piece with a minor 9 melodic emphasis.
- A decided turn in the road at this point, Ya Keep Sayin grooves with a jazzy 50′s swing shuffle vibe, mysterious, ala Peggy Lee’s archetypal Fever. A bit short at 2-ish minutes, might have been nice to develop this one out a little further, and perhaps edit out some of the other less strong material in this 14-song CD.
- In 3/4 time, I Don’t Understand offers a subtle, ballsy brass descending progression, with wah-wah guitar accents. The vocal sings the blues to authentic effect, again with plenty of title repeats.
- An interesting two chord progression provides the haunting bed in which You Said lies and laments another love gone wrong. The unexpectedly abrupt ending is a bit jarring, and might have let us down a bit more easily.
- Vocal harmonies are a welcome and refreshing addition, albeit kind of late, here in track 9: Falling in Love. This is the strongest pop tune winner so far in the collection, with the time-honored 1-2 chord groove used so successfully in many hits. Nice to hear a little light, carefree feel at this point. Again, more work could have been put into the ending.
- Don’t Think On It continues the pop train ride, but inching half back into the blues from a lead vocal melody standpoint. Plenty of MIDI auto-appegiating in this one, lending a valued hand in the song’s production development.
- An underwater guitar talk tube intro opens up Betcha Thought. With another strongly riff-based blues melody, the slapback guitar fits well with the always consistent vocal. Back and forth between two chords is all you get in total this time.
- Similar to track-8, Hey Love does a nice moody cool job with a dreamy electric piano base, this time with a slight Spanish feel. Songwriting-wise, my favorite offering on this record, fitting oh-so comfortably with Jenny’s competent pop lead melody.
- Keep Your Head Up is always good uplifting advice. Alternating between a laid-back blues melody and a hurry-it-up vocal riff is the primary mechanism here. As always, the vocal is predictably, consistently performed.
- Lyrically, this final song is the most direct gospel acknowledgment here. I Don’t Know When It’s Coming combines melody and spoken word/rap assuring us that blessing is coming—a wonderful promise!
Reviewed By Mike Ososki.
