Cascade Blues Music Reviews

Can't Find No Heaven

Alice Stuart

Music Review Index    

Music Review Reprint from the
November, 2002 BluesNotes
By Greg Johnson

Burnside Records, 0044
Total Time 50:25

    Alice Stuart is a Northwest icon when it comes to music. It's hard to deny the status of somebody who has worked alongside renown musicians such as Frank Zappa, Van Morrison, Jerry Garcia or Sonny Terry. Working into her fifth decade as a musician, this Seattle-based artist has withstood the test of time and continues to record material that surely shines. Her newest release, Can't Find No Heaven, is her Burnside Records debut and just may be the finest recording yet of her career.

    Alice Stuart has a voice that grabs your attention immediately. And her guitar work is simply magnificent as well. As a songwriter, she has a flair for capturing easy-flowing rhythms and verse which are visual and alive. Even on songs that are time-worn classics, Stuart places her own pen to create additional words or transformations that are hard to spot if hearing the song for the first time. It makes them personal reflections and comes across masterfully. She has done just that with selections like Sleepy John Estes' "Drop Down Mama" (retitled "Daddy" for obvious reasons), Jimmy Reed's "Big Boss Man," Skip James' "Rather Be The Devil" and Mance Lipscomb's "Sugar Babe." All songs with familiar incarnations in their original state, but surely just as potent now in Stuart's own revisions, no matter how slight they may be. And, her original material stands proudly alongside the better-known covers here. She has a poetic license which yearns to be placed to music and it is quite evident on numbers like "I Ruined Your Life" and "The Man's So Good."

    Produced by Terry Robb, who has worked his studio magic in the past with people like Sheila Wilcoxson and John Fahey, this album features a cast of many of the Northwest's finest Blues artists, lending their craft to the mix. Included are Paul deLay, Janice Scroggins, Duffy Bishop, Louis Pain and Robb himself (offering his debut as a bass player on one number). It makes for a fun-filled recording that's a satisfying winner upon first listen and just keeps getting better every time through.

 

© 2002 Cascade Blues Association