The Bluesmasters & Cassie Taylor — “The Bluesmasters Featuring Cassie Taylor” — Exulans DMD
Blues music and gospel music are deeply intertwined at their roots.
For decades, black church music and its devilish twin, the blues, have spawned various combinations of the two emotional styles, all testifying to their power to speak to the human soul, while effectively co-joined in the human heart.
Sometimes they live in their own separate worlds. But sometimes they join in a perfect harmony, as they do in the gorgeously created “The Bluesmasters Featuring Cassie Taylor,” with its stunning combination of blues-infused gospel and gospel-infused blues.
The Bluesmasters are a skin-tight group of players who’ve worked with many great artists over the years, including names like Leon Russell, The Allman Brothers Band, Elvin Bishop, Eric Gales, Mick Fleetwood, Otis Taylor, Magic Slim and many, many more.
This is the band’s eighth studio album, featuring singer and banjo and bass player Cassie Taylor (she was also the featured vocalist on the Bluesmasters’ second album). Taylor is the daughter of the famed “trance blues” innovator, Otis Taylor, in whose band she once played.
But on this powerful album of ten covers of classic blues and gospel songs, Taylor steps out after a ten-year break from performing with a sensational vocal outing, folding blues and gospel into an eloquent emotional blend.
The musicians here include Taylor on vocals, bass and banjo; Kassidy Kent on bass and background vocals; Christian Teele on drums; Eric Moon on guitar, B3 and accordion; Tim Tucker on guitars and bass; Stella Ann on percussion and background vocals; Kylee Ribble, Larea Edwards and Chrissy Grant on background vocals; Sally Van Meter on lap steel; and Doug Lynn on harmonica.
Taylor opens the session with a fierce vocal attack on the gospel-drenched “Downward Road,” recorded in 1960 by the Staple Singers. It’s hard to imagine a more explosively soulful album opener. Taylor’s delicate rendering of “Nobody’s Fault But Mine,” a 1927 Blind Willie Johnson song, with spirited choral backing, is simply gorgeous. Doug Lynn’s harp and Eric Moon’s accordion add yet another haunting dimension. Taylor continues a gospel theme with choral backing on “Sit Down Servant,” part of the Five Creek-Freedman Spirituals, a song cycle composed by Margaret Bonds in 1946.
“Wade in the Water” is a powerful African-American spiritual with a rich history, first published in 1901 in “New Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers” by Frederick J. Work and his brother, John Wesley Work Jr. The Sunset Four Jubilee Singers made the first recording of the song in 1925, and it was long associated with songs of the Underground Railroad. The Ramsey Lewis Trio popularized an instrumental version in 1966, and the song has been recorded by many other artists through the years. Needless to say, Taylor and the Bluesmasters present a rousing version worthy of its storied history.
Taylor turns “You’re Gonna Make Me Cry,” a 1968 rocker by Thee Midniters, an East Los Angeles-based Chicano band (not Hank Ballard & the Midnighters) into a slow, steamy scorcher. “If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again” gets a hard-driving update from its creation by John Whitfield Vaughan in 1922, with Taylor effortlessly carrying the rocking vocal load.
Next is Taylor’s strong reading of the sociopolitical gospel of “If You’re Ready,” which went gold for the Staple Singers in 1973. “I Wonder Why” is a soulful rendering of another Stapes Singers song, from 1968, with its mournful take on the desolateness of the human condition: “A child is born, another mouth to feed …. don’t know how to cry, I wonder, why, why, why.”
Taylor gives a stirring rendition of 1971’s anthemic “Respect Yourself, “written by Stax singer Luther Ingram and Stax songwriter Mack Rice, originally recorded with the Muscle Soals Rhythm Section, adding a little funkiness to the mix. Ingram comment at the time that “black folk need to learn to respect themselves” led to the song: “If you disrespect anybody that you run into, how in the hell do you think anybody’s gonna respect you?” Indeed.
The closer, “Chain of Fools,” is Aretha Franklin’s classic 1967 R&B hit by Don Covay. Taylor hits all the right notes with just the right amount of emotive power to bring the album to a close — but still leave you wanting more.
Cassie Taylor’s emotional return to performing with the Bluesmasters on this splendid album filled with vital music makes her a welcome addition to the roster of gospel-blues artists who want to fill that hole in your soul.
If you need an emotional rescue, here’s where you find your lifejacket. That’s the gospel truth!
I couldn’t find a video from the new album, but here’s a live performance of “Fine Cadillac” with the Bluesmasters and Cassie Taylor:
TRACK LIST:
- Downward Road 2.37
- Nobody’s Fault But Mine 5.02
- Sit Down Servant 3.36
- Wade In The Water 3.02
- You’re Gonna Make Me Cry3.30
- If I Could Hear My Mother… 2.31
- If You’re Ready 3.33
- I Wonder Why 3.04
- Respect Yourself 4.37
- Chain Of Fools 2.58
Musicians – Kassidy Kent (bass/banjo), Christian Teele (drums), Eric Moon (Fender Rhodes/B3/accordion), Sally Van Meter (lap steel), Doug Lynn (harmonica), Stella Ann (percussion/bgv), Kylee Ribble, Larea Edwards & Chrissy Grant (bgv).
Blues Roadhouse 