Barbara Blue & The Phantom Blues Band - By Popular Demand (2007)

The British compilation By Popular Demand is essentially an expanded edition of Barbara Blue's Sell My Jewelry album, adding a few tracks from three of her other releases (Out of the Blue, Memphis 3rd & Beale, and Love Money Can't Buy). On the 12 songs that originally comprised the Sell My Jewelry album, Blue presented a gutsy set of soulful contemporary blues with the backing of Taj Mahal's Phantom Blues Band. There's nothing groundbreaking about Blue, the songs, or the arrangements, but she has a powerful throaty voice, often used on songs playing up to a "tough mama" persona. The band gives her able support that draws soul music influences into the blues context, using organ and horns as well as the staple guitar and rhythm section. Blue wrote a bit of the material, but most of it's devoted to songs by other writers, including Janis Joplin ("Turtle Blues"), Lucinda Williams ("Drunken Angel"), and Rod Piazza (co-writer of "Brought Together by the Blues"), though the other composers won't be familiar names to many listeners. While she often sings about not taking guff from guys, in truth she sounds as good-natured as she does angry, though that doesn't detract from the merit of the music. She also breaks up the gruffer stuff with a couple of serious emotional near-ballads in "Don't Lead Me On" and Williams' "Drunken Angel," as well as a gutbucket self-penned John Lee Hooker tribute, "From the Delta to the Golden Gates." Taj Mahal's Phantom Blues Band also plays on four of the six other tracks, which largely follow a similar style.