Samantha Martin & Delta Sugar – Send The Nightingale
taoboy@cox.net
Posted On March 25, 2015
From the North Country
This Canadian artist is going to take you to the deep dark south of the plantations on the rivers and waterways of the Mighty Mississippi Delta and to the Church of Gospel Music, where the music and the spirit blend and intertwine and become a sacred voice. Her rich raspy voice is made for this journey and on this disc we have a symbiotic package. She wrote most of the songs, plays acoustic guitar/Resonator guitar and handles the lead vocals with an edge to her raspy voice. She is beautifully backed by Delta Sugar; Sherie Marshall and Stacie Tabb, they know how to put the rhythm to good use and when to let loose, and when to give it a rest. Then there is the solid backing and soulful fills by Jimmy Hill on organ, and Mikey McCallum on electric guitar.
Often down in the lower 48 we don’t hear of good and worthy artists from the often times frozen land to our north, unless there is some interaction with artists from in the states. Ronnie Hawkins, The McGarrigal Sisters, and Joni Mitchell to name just a few who were equally popular on both sides of the dividing line. Now there are people such as the members of Blackie & The Rodeo Kings, Matt Andersen, and Neil Young and maybe the newest unknown Samantha Martin. First you notice the gravelly voice that somehow breaks through on “Give Me Your Mercy Now,” and then is joined by a couple of other voices pleading for your mercy, slowly joined by the rest of the group building into a pleading that is not begging. This album builds and and relaxes into recovery, going into the churchy blues with the wonderful addition of that resonator guitar. Listen to what that resonator adds to the song “Mississippi Sun.”
This is a disc that never lets you settle into complacency but keeps building in ways that are innovative and incorporate the best of the Gospel Church and Old South Blues that are just a step or two away from the Church and yet at the same time worlds away from it in feel and intimacy. Fantastic harmonies that are to be commended, using three voices to sound like a whole choir.
Samantha Martin & Delta Sugar – Send The Nightingale – independent
http://www.samanthamartin.ca
