Alice Stuart – Can’t Find No Heaven
With Can’t Find No Heaven, Alice Stuart has made a blues album as clear and direct as a prom date kiss, or perhaps its subsequent face slap. There’s a knowing balance of the joys and pains of American living in her song selection, a mix of vintage covers and well-crafted originals. And there’s never any doubt that a grown-up woman is delivering the report.
What sets this collection apart are Stuart’s perfectly balanced arrangements; throughout, there’s a sense that each musician has instrumental room to breathe, and that they’re doing so as one. From Stuart’s no-nonsense guitar solo on “Big Boss Man” to her finely woven fingerpicking on Furry Lewis’ “Keep Your Money Green” (and oh, that steely caress of a voice), she’s in complete control of the music’s direction.
Yet there’s also space for the rhythmically deft harmonica work of Paul DeLay on “Blues In The Bottle” and the sterling slide guitar of Terry Robb on “Drop Down Daddy”. And on the full bar-band swagger of “The Man Is So Good”, the expanded lineup proves to be all purposeful. Flash has no place here, but service to the song sure does.
The album’s emotional core is the three-song sequence of Stuart’s “I Ruined Your Life”, Skip James’ retooled “Hard Time Killin’ Floor”, and James’ “Rather Be The Devil”. Here, Stuart assumes fully the mature self-confidence the blues requires of its champions. In three stylistically varied performances, she steers her perfectly balanced band effortlessly through a harrowing landscape of hurt.