Deborah Coleman - Soul Be It! (2002)

The first live album from up-and-coming blues guitarist and singer Deborah Coleman is a sheer delight, chock-full of evidence that someday she'll be considered one of the brightest stars in blues. Soul Be It! starts off nice and easy, with the uptempo-yet-relaxed "Brick." That's just to warm you up, however. By the time "I'm a Woman" rolls around, Coleman's guitar playing catches fire. As for her voice, it's more like Turkish coffee than hot chocolate; there's a richness to her singing that a connoisseur will appreciate. The 12-minute final track, "Goodbye Misery," is a revelation: in a mere eight tracks, Coleman takes her listeners from the opening bars (the bars' opening?) at 9 p.m. all the way to 2 in the morning, with relentless energy. Coleman has to be one of the hardest-working women in the business; she mentions being home perhaps two weeks out of the year. All her work pays off in this live recording, which is as refined as a studio performance, but has that extra kick only a live show can deliver. --Genevieve Williams