Barbara Hendricks - Barbara Hendricks & her Blues Band: The Road to Freedom (2018) [Hi-Res]

One of the most celebrated singers in the world, Barbara Hendricks was invited by Claude Nobs, founder of the Montreux Festival, to take her first steps in the world of jazz in 1994. In fact, what could have been more natural? This music has lived in her forever, it is part of her roots, of someone who first started singing with the Negro spirituals in the church of her father, a pastor in Arkansas. After having for many years explored the repertories of the great jazz instrumentalists and singers of the 20th century, she has for the past decade delved into the roots of jazz: the blues. This was first of all the case with the programme Blues Everywhere I Go that took us into the heart of the Mississippi Delta; today she offers us a new project: The Road to Freedom. The songs of blues and gospel have played a highly important role in accompanying and inspiring the courageous activists who have struggled for civil rights in the USA, a struggle led by Martin Luther King in the 1950's and 1960's. The emotional power of these songs, and the example of the activists' conviction are more than ever necessary to help us confront the complexities and contradictions of today's world, one too often based on division and hatred, and not enough on love and that solidarity to which Dr. King was always referring. Barbara Hendricks places her universally recognizable voice at the service of this music: a full-flavored voice with varied tone-colors and a wealth of color that make this repertory so fascinating and bewitching.