As any politician will tell you, the bully pulpit is half the fun of the job, and same goes for musicians—when they get popular enough, they kinda get to decide who lives and who dies.As we now know, Anders Osborne was made for the NOLA scene, especially the antediluvian one, and so when he takes an interest in someone, so should we.
Osborne didn’t exactly discover world music harp player JeConte, who’d already made some noise in Northern California with his mix of blues and African percussion, or Danielle Nicole, former bassist for Kansas City blues rockers Trampled Under Foot. But he did produce both these new albums, assist with guitar and backing vocals, and even co-write some of the tunes.
JeConte doesn’t journey to the dark-continent as often here as he did on last year’s travelogue Mali Blues, except when it’s obvious, like “Mother Africa,” or the tribal drums that anchor the otherwise quite electric, quite rocking “Stuck in the Mud.” Anders introduces him as if he were a visual artist at a cocktail party meeting some future possible backers.
The overall mood is light and breezy, alternating between swampy grinders and coffeehouse acoustic blues (that’s a compliment) that only occasionally hints at a world outside the American South. And he demonstrates quite a bit of range, vocally and behind his chosen instrument: the title track and “Promised Land” bookend everything with Delta-blues gospel, but “Everything” has a punkish energy and “Little Christina” flirts with country, the genuine kind.
Nicole, whose debut is really just a four-song teaser LP with two “bonus” live tracks, comes at the blues directly from a rock fan’s POV: she started with Etta and Sarah Vaughn but matured with the help of Janis Joplin and what sounds like a mix of Joan Osborne and Ann Wilson. Meaning she growls when she’s pissed off, but otherwise her beauty is her truth, vocally speaking.
Her best moments aren’t necessarily brassy kiss-offs like “You Only Need Me When You’re Down” or “Didn’t Do You No Good,” but the slower, sultrier other half that shows her true range. And as if to prove it, the two live acoustic tracks—a redux of “You Only Need Me” and a cover of Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright”—force the interpreter in her to tame the sassy blues mama.
