Etta James - Let's Roll

List Price: $21.98
Our Price: $19.99
You Save: $1.99 (9%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $5.99 (click here)
Category: Music CD
See more CD details

CD Details

• Etta James - Let's Roll

Music reviews of Let's Roll

Music Review: Etta's back at the right moment
Rating: 4 Stars

In the years since Ms. Hawkins blossomed into the self-poclaimed "Matriarch of the Blues," many epochs, both personal and national, have drifted in and out of James's life. Tirelessly recording her way out of a long bout with drug addiction, Etta James's musical persona underwent several incarnations. From 50's doo-wop to 60's soul to 70's rock, funk and disco, Etta James reemerged in 1988 with the soulful Seven Year Itch on Island records. A series of mixed albums for various labels followed, including Elektra's The Right Time, produced by Jerry Wexler in 1992.

2000's Matriarch of the Blues saw James returning to form and command with a snarling collection of R&B rockers and ballads, covering everyone from Ray Charles to the Rolling Stones. Among the album's standouts was an invigorated rendition of Bob Dylan's "Gotta Serve Somebody," a preachy tune from Dylan's born again years that served as the perfect invitation for James to revisit the days of the L.A. Baptist church choir. The album foreshadowed things to come, with sons Danto and Sametto lending their hands to Etta's rediscovered disposition.
With the drum, bass and percussion work of Danto and Sametto at her side again, Etta James offers the self-produced Let's Roll, titled in tribute to 9/11 hero Todd Beamer, a passenger on flight 93 that day who, after issuing the final words "let's roll," reportedly brought the plane down before it reached some more disastrous destination. "Over the years, I've sung jazz and blues and pop but I'm really a rock and roller at heart," James says of her latest release. The woman's not kidding. As Let's Roll explodes into the opening "Somebody to Love," one of two Delbert McClinton tunes featured on the album, Etta James seems poised to replace Mick Jagger as the Rolling Stones' leading voice and tongue. Known for wild stage antics verging on the obscene during live performances, such a shift in gears would likely suit James just fine.

Guitarists Bobby Murray and Josh Sklain of James's "Roots Band" sizzle throughout, rivaling Robert Quine and Fernando Saunders of Lou Reed's famously blistering Blue Mask days. Singeing through standout rockers like the opening and immediately catchy "Somebody to Love," the ruggedly bluesy "The Blues is My Business," and the rollicking, textured "Old Weakness," Murray and Sklain slip unexpectedly into searing jams, bursting out of nowhere on the atmospheric ballad, "On The 7th Day." "On the seventh day, God made the blues," James intones.

Time and trouble have entrenched themselves into James's voice, deepening it into the kind of pathos-ridden holler that lends itself perfectly to the album's onslaught of emotionally beleaguered lyrics. It is a lot to say that James, after all this time and struggle, can still approach the triumph of her trademark "At Last," her monumental 1961 soul hit, but throughout "Let's Roll," James revisits themes of passion and consequence with the unmistakable sincerity borne of so many wounds. "Passion will burn, burn like gasoline," James sings in her robust, embattled croon on "Please, No More," the album's most wrenching ballad:

We start a fight
Who knows what for
Who knows who's winning
Who's keeping score
You say it's alright
As you slam the door
All I can say is

Please, please no more

While James's penchant for balladry endures, age has also proven unsuccessful in subduing her capacity for ripping into a tune. The uproarious "Strongest Weakness" sounds like some early 80's Eurythmics power ballad, minus the weird hair and synthesizer. One of the album's many fine pieces of production, "Strongest Weakness" illustrates the artful minimalism that allows each song to speak for itself.

With many artists returning to the roots of rock and blues these days-John Mellencamp's folkish Trouble No More, Van Morrison's R&B laden Down the Road, and Richard Thompson's abandonment of recent, slicker albums in favor of his new, stripped-bare Old Kit Bag, to name a few-it seems that Norah Jones's appealingly understated Come Away With Me was more of a barometer of the contemporary listener's appetite than a one-time fluke. Etta James's resurgence, then, comes at precisely the right moment. Let's Roll's unremittingly raw approach seems just the thing the people want. But while the aforementioned artists strain to capture those traditional sounds lurking vaguely beneath the surface of their musical achievements, Etta James is merely unleashing the ghosts that have inhabited her voice since the first day she stepped into that L.A. church choir. This is no "return" to roots; these ARE the roots, in all their simple luster.

Description of Let's Roll

Blues CDs

• Music > Styles
• Pop
• R&B