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REVIEWS

Eliza Neals—ColorCrimes—Elizabeth T. Neals

Eliza Neals, “The Detroit Diva”, is the epitome of a rock chick.
She has learned her trade in the blues rock field through her
hundreds of gigs all over the USA. She is quick to acknowledge
her debt to Barrett Strong, who mentored her. He is co-
producer of this album but unfortunately passed away in
January 2023.

The title track ‘ColorCrimes’ stems from personal experience,
“Not only is it racism, there’s bigotry, there’s sexism, it just goes
on and on and on and being a woman, I’ve been privy to a lot
of it”, Elisa told Jeff Gaudiosi of Blue Fix.

The self-knowledge theme continues with ‘Banned in Jackson’, a true story of exclusion for an
alleged clothing faux pas. The lyrics, the instrumentation and the sheer drive of the band on the
record make this album another notch on the belt of the self-described ‘Armenian chic’ who is,
without a doubt, a 21st century soul, R&B, rock, Motown trained artist whose style is both modern
blues-rock and contemporary blues.

Ian K McKenzie

Giles Robson—Seven Blues Classics—Independent GR1005

There’s an (allegedly) apocryphal story of jazz and blues clubs
about people shouting to wind-instrument player “Oh! Blow
that thing”. Well, here’s the thing when you are playing blues
harp a massive proportion of what the musician does is sucking,
not blowing. To avoid personal injury, shouting “Oh suck that
thing” is not advised. Not only that, but blues harp playing is
seriously hard work too!

Giles Robson has been at the top of the game for a long time. He
is the ONLY UK or European artist to record on the prestigious
Alligator label and he is one of only three British artists to win an award in the Blues Foundation’s
Blues Music Awards.

Here Giles is only accompanied by Manny Frizotti in a selection of eight virtuoso harp-based
pieces, recorded live at Temperance and stunningly good they are too. Giles has selected seven
pieces by blues masters and added one of his own, to the mix. The list is in the graphic above.
Without exception they are stunning in both their structure and delivery. What’s more you can
hear how hard Giles is working. The grunts, the groans, the hard intakes of breath and the gasps
of release are the stuff of blues harp playing. “Suck that thing”.

Giles has seen fit to add to the seven blues classics of the title one tune of his own, quite properly
a ‘train’ tune, delivered solo, with fire, panache and exemplary skill it is a stunner - a classic on
its own. Outstanding.

Ian K McKenzie