Charmaine Neville has it all… a honey-sweet-molasses voice, good vocal chops, a pedigree to die for, knowledge of her musical roots, and a real showman’s flair. Unfortunately, that last talent sometimes overwhelms the others, resulting in a just-us-folks bonhomie that occasionally crosses the line into gimmickry. The question seems to be: how can someone so real sound so forced?

Thankfully, the pagan lusts that drive Mardi Gras tend to obliterate this sort of thing. Queen Of The Mardi Gras is a CD that reveals Charmaine having real fun, not the stage-brewed variety. Made up mainly of long second-lines with a funk-R&B arrangement, it offers retakes of standards like “Mardi Gras In New Orleans” and “Iko Iko” that actually manage to sound fresh all over again, thanks mainly to Charmaine’s interpretive scats and Raymond Weber’s maniacal drum tracks.

Queen… is a good boogie soundtrack for drunken revels, but Charmaine almost lets it slip near the end. “Clean Up (After Mardi Gras)” steers too close a litter PSA to be real fun; the vocal version of “Second Line” seems gratuitous, and “Whistle Krewe,” which could be a new classic, is instead marred by her unnecessary commentary.
Her biggest triumph is probably the slow and sexy “Mardi Gras Mambo,” which manages to keep the mambo flavor and the funk as well. There are a couple of other nice treats tossed out as well, like the somewhat original “Shoofly” and a new instrumental called “Whistle Krewe.”