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life experience – listen to her on the great, jazzy ‘Compared to What’ – and it’s such a great pity
that she hasn’t produced more music over the years but I can only hope that this was her choice.

Graham Harrison

Kaz Hawkins—Until We Meet Again—Diggers Factory ASIN
: B0BZQVPSWF

We blast off with ‘Pray To’, a gospel-inflected song that starts
out slow and soulful and then beefs up into an anthemic tribute
to amongst others Muddy Waters, Etta James and Big Mama
Thornton. Wow! It’s not just Kaz’s amazing powerful voice, her
French band of Stef Paglia (guitar), Cédric Le Goff (keyboards),
Julien Boisseau (bass) and Amaury Blanchard (drums) are also

superb (plus they also provide the soulful backing vocals!). ‘Hold
on for Home’ adds riffing brass for a Stax-like soul strut and
‘Lonely Boy’ is a subdued melodic ballad (with Kaz channelling
her Irish heritage by playing the bodhran).

The title track is a punchy, catchy song and ‘Don’t Make Mama Cry’ is a moody song with
stabbing brass (and more bodhran) and again Kaz’s vocals drive the song. ‘Standing Tall’ is an
emotional torch song with strings and a lovely Hammond solo from Le Goff and ‘I Gotta Be Me’
is an understated soul ballad with more strings. We then speed up for ‘Get the Jack from the
Bottle’ a rocking blues with slide guitar and the final ‘bonus’ track is the dramatic slow blues
‘One More Fight’ (originally titled ‘Lipstick and Cocaine’) with its subtle organ and guitar
playing. I was very impressed by the French band who are great throughout but the real star
here is Kaz, both for her song-writing – these are all her original songs - and also THAT voice
– she may not be in the first flush of youth but you can clearly hear that life experience and
pain in every note that she sings.

Graham Harrison

Dr. John—The Montreux Years (Live)—BMG ASIN :
‎B0C2NRZWWM

This latest posthumous release from Dr. John (Mac Rebennack)
is a collection of performances from the Montreux Jazz Festival
between 1986 and 2011 at various venues including the Casino,

the Auditorium Stravinski and Miles Davis Hall. The five 1986
tracks are solo piano/vocal performances with Mac channeling
Crescent city legends like Professor Longhair, Huey Smith and
James Booker.

Elsewhere the good Doctor is backed by his long-time band the
Lower 911 with Norleans session men including Trombone Shorty, Alvin ‘Red’ Tyler and
Shannon Powell. They present songs including Dr. John hits like ‘Right Place, Wrong Time’,
New Orleans classics like ‘Let the Good Times Roll’ as well as standards including a 10-minute
medley of ‘In a Sentimental Mood/ Mississippi Mud/Happy Hard Times’. Although some would
say that this is cashing in on Mac’s legacy I’m sure that many fans will be only too glad to have
these examples of his versatility and keyboard prowess which are well-recorded and presented.

Graham Harrison