Cee Cee James - Seriously Raw [Live At Sunbanks]

You gotta learn how to grunt in life or it ain’t worth it....

I was very recently urged to experience Cee Cee James perform live and I look forward to that possibility when she next tours in the UK. The vocal prowess so evident on latest release Blood Red Blues, reviewed here a few days ago, would be a dynamic treat to hear. Indeed, having been so impressed with BRB I did track down this live recording, and James’ other blues album Low Down Where The Snakes Crawl is now on order from the States.

Seriously Raw [Live At Sunbanks] offers up fourteen superb blues tracks, opening with Robert Johnson’s Crossroad Blues, where Cee Cee ‘warms up the stage’ with an amazing vocal start just after the slick Rob Andrews slide intro. Her Joplin tone and volume ignites the song, and Jason Childs supplies skilful lead guitar. I’ve commented on the Joplin echo, as has every other reviewer I’ve read, and it seems James is comfortable with and honoured by the comparison – so much so that she delivers a version of Mercedes Benz on this album, and it takes confidence to risk such a direct juxtaposition. I wasn’t sure at first, but it works, especially as Cee Cee’s commentary – and then scream – makes the homage honest. This is followed by a lovely cover of Kristofferson’s Me and Bobby McGee. Her song I Got A Right To Sing The Blues from BRB gets an earlier outing here too. Tina Turner’s Nutbush City Limits gets a brilliant slowblues introduction and then launches into a raucous rendition. 

                                (C) Reed R. Radcliffe / TripleRPhotography.com

If you check out this page http://www.triplerphotography.com/Music/For%20Cee%20Cee/index.html there’s a sequence of great photographs that present the blood, sweat and tears of Cee Cee James performing, and they supply visual credence to the emotive energy of her singing. Great captures by Reed R. Radcliffe.

Cee Cee James - Blood Red Blues

 

Aural Doppleganger

Is it a burden or blessing to sing and sound like Janis Joplin? Cee Cee James has that startling replication, and it clearly isn’t an affectation – she has a naturally powerful and emotive voice delivering perfect blues, exemplified in the manifesto of sixth track I Got A Right To Sing The Blues on this latest album release. Many gutsy, gritty female vocalists get the Joplin comparison - as reference point and accolade - but if there is such a thing as an aural doppelganger, James occupies this role with I would suggest the blessing of an uncannily Joplinesque tone in addition to the requisite rasp and growl.

As the album title Blood Red Blues indicates, the blues roots and infusion separate James from Joplin in its singular focus. The self-penned songs, co-written with husband and band lead guitarist Rob ‘Slideboy’ Andrews, are the consummate reflection of over 20 years of performance and the musical learning curves and lifestyle this presents. The sultry and the sassy get a reflective romp in 100 Ways To Make Love; the pain that will intersperse those saucy times gets a mature review in the slow blues lament of Wounds, and this ninth track also features the resonant breadth of James’ vocal. But it’s the jaunt and swagger of the livelier blues tracks on this album that reveal the wonderful blessing of James’ singing, whatever its echoes.

                       (C) Reed R. Radcliffe / TripleRPhotography.com