Emily Barker - Sweet Kind of Blue [Deluxe Edition] '2017

Tracks list

Sweet Kind of Blue was recorded at Sam Phillips Recording Service in Memphis
with Grammy winner Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price) and an all star
cast of Memphis session players: Rick Steff (keys), Steve Potts (drums), Dave
Smith (bass) and Dave Cousar (guitar). For Emily’s fans, it will be a new
sound: as Matt Ross-Spang suggested to Emily in persuading her to record the
album at Sam Phillips, theres a certain groove that only Memphis can produce.
For Emily herself, it’s a return to where her love of music started: far
away from Memphis or London, singing her heart out to Aretha Franklin records in
her bedroom in sleepy Bridgetown, Western Australia.

When I was a teenager, I got really into sixties soul singers, Aretha being my
favourite. At twelve years old, my tiny country town in the south west of
Australia, Bridgetown, hosted its first Blues Festival. What was, on a daily
basis, a population of 2,000 people, suddenly became 7,000 for three days on the
second weekend in November 1993.

Every café and pub, the town hall, school assembly room, the show
ground’s oval all became venues, with Blues music bass lines bouncing
down the street and clashing in the air. The following year, my high school
suddenly upped its game in the music department, and went from having the option
of learning recorder or playing a Casio keyboard, to having a drum kit, a couple
of electric guitars, electric basses and vocal microphones. Everyone became a
musician. I became a singer. I auditioned for the schools Year 10 band, and got
the role! Being in love with soul and blues, we learned Chuck Berry’s
‘Go Johnny Go!’, Wilson Pickett’s ‘Mustang
Sally’, Aretha Franklin’s ‘Respect’, Koko
Taylor’s ‘Wang Dang Doodle’ and many others. I performed at
school assemblies and graduation ceremonies and after school I would shut myself
in my room and have a Best of Aretha compilation on repeat as I taught myself
how to “belt it out” without losing my voice.

So I feel like I’ve come full circle, because the album I have just
recorded at Sam Phillips Recording Service in Memphis; the songs, the recording
studio, the sound, the musicians, the feel; it all tips its hat and winks back
to those last days before I hit my teens, falling in love with singing and
falling in love with soul and blues music.

Just being in Memphis felt like one of those moments when you have to pinch
yourself and say this is really happening, and wow, look where my life has lead
me! A south-west Aussie country bumpkin kid who used to lose her voice learning
to sing in her bedroom, goes to Memphis, Tennessee, to make an album in a studio
built by Sam Phillips, the man who forever changed the course of music history
by bringing blues and rock ‘n’ roll to the world… without
whom, that Bridgetown Blues Festival may never have happened.

„…the sweltering funk of Sunrise and the title track sound like lost
Muscle Shoals gems.“ (UNCUT)

„Its a sweet and tender distillation of Americana influences. Blues meets
country meets gospel, Emilys songwriting seems to capture a world that belongs
both in the past and the present.“ (Clash)

“the arrangements are exquisite and the clear love [Barker] has for this
music brings its own integrity” (The Times)

“country-soul with luminous warmth” (Mojo)

“finally sets out her true claim for stardom” (Q)

Emily Barker, vocals, guitar, piano
Dave Cousar, guitar
Rick Steff, keyboards
Dave Smith, bass
Steve Potts, drums

Tracklist:
01. Emily Barker - Sweet Kind of Blue (3:36)
02. Emily Barker - Sister Goodbye (4:09)
03. Emily Barker - Sunrise (3:41)
04. Emily Barker - No. 5 Hurricane (4:53)
05. Emily Barker - If We Forget to Dance (5:07)
06. Emily Barker - Crazy Life (3:57)
07. Emily Barker - Over My Shoulder (4:08)
08. Emily Barker - Change (3:31)
09. Emily Barker - More! (2:43)
10. Emily Barker - Underneath the Honey Moon (3:00)
11. Emily Barker - Precious Memories (2:50)
12. Emily Barker - Blood Moon (4:51)
13. Emily Barker - Tomorrow Be Now (2:52)
14. Emily Barker - Hold On (Don’t Let Me See This Night Alone) (3:49)
15. Emily Barker - Black and White Video (4:03)
16. Emily Barker - Sunrise (Long Version) (8:01)
17. Emily Barker - Sister Goodbye (Solo) (3:39)
18. Emily Barker - No. 5 Hurricane (Solo) (4:47)

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