Blues Roadhouse

Eden Brent — “Getaway Blues” — Yellow Dog Records

The last time I saw Eden Brent, it was several years ago, sometime after midnight, somewhere at sea, and I was sitting close enough to watch her fingers fly as she was still pounding out the music at the piano bar on the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise.

She played boogie and blues and ballads, and left me hung out to dry, what with me being a fool for live music, piano blues, evocative vocals, and just about anyone who can do all that at once.

Now I’ve been listening to her latest album, “Getaway Blues,” without all that visual stimulation, and it’s still leaving me hung out to dry. It’s a gorgeous little session of just nine songs, all original material from Brent and her musician/producer husband Bob Dowell.

But size doesn’t really matter here, with sparkling music that travels smoothly from barrelhouse boogie to bluesy ballads, all firmly in the grasp of Eden’s piano and vocals, Dowell’s bass work, Rob Updegraff on guitar, and Pat Levett on drums. It’s Brent’s first album since her 2018 holiday album, and her first studio release of new material since 2014’s “Jigsaw Heart.” It was recorded in London, far from her Greenville, Miss., roots, and very nicely turned out in just a couple of days. But everybody knows the roots of the blues are wide and deep.

The set opens with the rousing title track, driven hard by Brent’s rollicking barrelhouse piano intro and sassy vocals as she sets her sights on the open road at the end of a broken romance, all highlighted by a nicely stinging guitar break from Updegraff (the first of many in the set).

An album highlight is the 61/2-minute languorous blues of “Watch the World Go By,” a torchy ode to lost love powered by a duet of sumptuous piano and sultry vocals as Brent laments: “Let me pour a little whiskey/And watch the world go by.” It’s a perfect late-night, slow-burning blues, with more elegant guitar notes.

“What You Want” bounces eagerly back with the slyly salacious “I’ll give you anything and everything/Baby, tell me what you want” with its percussive rhythms and still more dancing guitar. “You On My Mind,” another passionate ballad follows, this time it’s a love poem written by Dowell featuring Brent’s moving vocals accentuated by a lovely lyrical guitar: “Nothing else matters as long as you’re around.”

“He Talks About You” follows, an upbeat, rhythmic tale whose bubbly feel underlines the idea that “I am resigned to be the other woman” who “Can not lose what I ain’t got,” and then a New Orleans piano vibe introduces the lilting melody of “Just Because I Love You.”

“Mississippi River Got Me Crying” is a sweetly sung ballad flowing around Brent’s dusky vocals before “Rust” takes a slow-burning blues turn where rust can’t stop a freight train, but has a more metaphorical power: “My man don’t ever leave me / sticks to me just like rust.” The closer is the slinky, auto-erotic “Gas Pumping Man,” fueled by a razor-sharp guitar solo, in praise of “my high-octane baby.”

With the effervescent “Getaway Blues,” Eden Brent has taken us down home with music that’s not really a getaway, but a step back into the spirited world of piano blues and earthy vocals.

What you’ll want while you listen, and you should, is another pour of whiskey to listen to this fine music roll on.

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“Getaway Blues”

Track List

1. Getaway Blues
2. Watch The World Go By
3. What You Want
4. You On My Mind
5. He Talks About You
6. Just Because I Love You
7. Mississippi River Got Me Crying
8. Rust
9. Gas Pumping Man