Beth Hart comes very highly rated by those who know and have worked with her. Slash, who guests on this album, says she is one of his favourite artists to work with, while Joe Bonamassa claims she has got it all and she is the real deal. While she gets nothing like the mainstream recognition her work merits, her fanbase knows quality when they see and hear it. She has none of the airbrushed glow of certain modern female artists. Rather, she wears her heart on her sleeve and wrings emotion from her voice.
This album was originally released in 2024, reaching number one on the US blues albums chart and top 10 places in charts across Europe. The deluxe edition contains the same 11 tracks, with the addition of six bonus tracks previously only available on a limited edition box set.
Slash guests on opening track ‘Savior With A Razor’, laying down some electrifying runs. It is a pity he did not play on other tracks, because these two together just work. She also has another guest on ‘Suga In My Bowl’, Eric ‘Raw Dawg’ Gales, whose funky playing lays down a nice solid groove.
Beth Hart is not constrained by genres, she can sing the blues as well as wrapping herself around Americana and soul. Her voice is strong when she sings rocky tracks like ‘Machine Gun Vibrato’, but she can also sound vulnerable and fragile on ‘You Still Got Me’, a song of hope, no matter what happens, you still got me, and ‘Drunk On Valentine’, which sees Beth in impassioned torch singer mode. Her voice, however, is powerful on ‘Don’t Call The Police’, written in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, which even includes the sounds of a person being choked.
On ‘Never Underestimate A Gal’, a Johnny Cash style morality tale, as well as ‘I Wanna Be Big Bad Johnny Cash’, she pays homage to the great man, he sings his songs like he is cheating death, with a couple of delightful country leaning tunes, even down to utilising Cash’s boom chicka boom guitar style.
The bonus tracks include slightly extended versions of ‘Savior With A Razor’ and ‘Wonderful World’, but the highlight of the entire album is ‘Mean ‘Ol Man Of Mine’, a cool bluesy jazz tune sounding right out of the Bessie Smith songbook, which Beth nails down, sounding like every other woman who has ever fallen for the wrong man but cannot leave him. An entire album of songs like this would be quite something.
This album probably will not sell in numbers, but it is another example of the old sporting adage, form is temporary but class is permanent, and it does Beth Hart a disservice to refer to her as the next Janis Joplin. She isn’t, she is very much her own woman.
