Hope Waits
Hope Waits
Radarproof Records Corp.
visit the band's website
and on myspace
also available on amazon
Periodically surprises come in the mail, sometimes in the most unexpected packages. This eponymous titled disc with what looks like a stale DeGrazia print of a young girl with huge eyes arrived and just sat untouched. On a bland day with miles to cover it was grabbed as nothing else was pressing and handy and thrown in the car changer; when the driver recovered the socks which had been blown off and pulled over and looked again, and then listened with a big smile. A rare and individual talent had been sitting for so long unheeded because of the cover, what a wonderful smack upside the head that was. This woman grew up in the south with a life filled with tragedy; an alcoholic father who couldn’t provide and disappeared, a mother who was jealous of the daughter’s singing in the church, and finally the murder of her mother at age 21, was the release of this talent to the world. This is music – blues, R&B and jazz – sung with the heart of the soul. Astonishing might be the apt word for what she does with Ray Charles’, “Drown in My Own
Tears,” breathtakingly beautiful and completely different for a version of “Come Rain or Shine.” The cover of Tom Waits’ (no relation since you were going to ask) “Get Behind the Mule” is a major tour de force. There are 9 other specially selected gems by such writers as Bob Dylan and Jerome Kern waiting for your ears.
Special mention to Peter Malick, who was the producer, and thus was responsible for assembling an absolutely smashing band of professionals to get behind her on this disc and leave her the room to breakaway and soar. These musicians shift easily from blues to R & B to jazz to amalgams of all three. This is a disc to be reckoned with. Hold on folks a major talent is unveiled and is bursting into stardom.