Priscilla Coolidge - Gypsy Queen [1971]

The Ties That Blind

Priscilla Coolidge – sister to Rita and wife to Booker T [who produced and arranged this album] – is apparently, and unfortunately, and now ironically, destined to being referenced by these relationships rather than her music because she didn’t produce a large body of work or appear on the Old Grey Whistle Test with a different husband Kris Kristofferson and perform one of the most sensuous duets ever. But Gypsy Queen is a fine if uneven album, and perhaps that variable set of songs rather than any shifting in quality of performance means it isn’t that well known.

There are fine tracks: opener On The Road has a bluesy guitar riff and organ thrusts to set off Priscilla’s full and soaring voice, fuzzed guitar and vocal harmony adding some soul and funk; second Let It Shine has cool acoustic guitar and foregrounded percussion to underpin a fuller and sensual vocal that does scat effectively towards the end; third Gypsy King is slowed to an almost spoken pace, but this does allow Coolidge to place emphasis on inflections, and it is at times deeply pure. And these are three of the seven self-penned songs on the album. Sixth T My T is an odd inclusion, a honky tonk snippet that is either genuinely or artificially like a demo take. Seventh Good Morning Freedom is the strongest track and has a heavy climbing riff over which Coolidge’s vocal is at some of its most gutsy on the album. A number of the songs are rather short and even appear truncated and this probably adds to the overall sense of unevenness, but eleventh and closer Hummingbird is the longest at six minutes, and whilst slow, it has a gospel feel [perhaps the organ] and the vocal is centre stage, strong and quite beautiful.