Beth Hart: You Still Got Me – Album Review

Beth Hart: You Still Got Me                                        

Via Provogue/Mascot Label Group

All Formats

Out Now

New generation Blues cognoscenti and Grammy nominated singer for all seasons, Beth Hart’s latest album sees her adding some big hitters to the guest roll call while MK Bennett marvels.

There is an edge of the Blues that regularly intersects with Rock, unsurprisingly, given that the basic musical components of both are the same. Still, the trick in doing it well, keeping within the long since written and forgotten book of rules, often involves an outside source, an affiliated guest, another player with common ground, common interests, and sometimes someone who is just really good at what they do, or ideally all of these things. Modern Blues albums can, on occasion, come across as market research, too much gloss, not enough sandpaper. Beth Hart seems to have little care for marketing, purists, or anything else likely to keep lesser people worried. Once you have out an album of Led Zeppelin covers and have committed to tape your interpretation of twelve or so variants on Rocks’ greatest ever singer, you have probably lost the concern others have about how you sound.

Everything here rightfully revolves around the voice, that huge room-filling lung collapsing sound she makes, from a whisper to a scream, a murmur to a sigh. At this point in her career, her talent is not in dispute, so we judge the songs within the context of the voice and see what beauty we might find in the details.

Savior With A Razor is track one, with Slash guesting. This is clever, Slash being a megastar who made his name primarily in Rock and Metal, but his playing, from the string bends to the scales, has always been Blues-based, and he sounds right at home here, an upbeat standard blues with a gorgeous drawn out chorus and Slash dropping Wah Wah solo’s wherever there isn’t a verse, it is an excellent opener, modern but traditional. Suga N My Bowl features the wonderful Eric Gales, a more precise Blues technician than Slash, though still with a ton of heart in his playing, a lovely old-school riff kicks it off before Beth sings, reminiscent of Free, I’ll be surprised if the lyrics were about anything other than you thought they were. Another great chorus too, all hooks and big chords, as she effortlessly moves from low to high in a heartbeat.

Never Underestimate A Gal proves that a great singer turns a song. Musically, it is The Devil Went Down To Georgia via a French bar band, while Beth melts a German cowboy blues vocal into a work of vocal brilliance. Though it lacks a fiddle solo, there is a ton of whistling. Bravo, it is as fun as it sounds. Drunk On Valentine is a Jazz-infused slow walk in the park, a sultry ballad like Ella used to make. Despite knowing she is throwing down with the true greats here, Beth is not on a tightrope; she is swinging for the metaphorical fences, confidence on 11, talent on 12. The piano is up front and centre, supporting the vocal, occasionally enhancing but in a good place.

Wanna Be Big Bad Johnny Cash starts as it intends to go, a big ol’ country boy wearing JC’s clothes and chord progressions, easy on the eye and ear, it will go down a storm anywhere it is played live, the theme from an imaginary Long Ryders song, and the last pure perfect note she holds is a shiversome thing. Wonderful World is the first acoustic song, which she has already sung the living shit out of before the first chorus, it is a beautiful song with a gorgeous arrangement, one of many performances deserving of a Grammy or similar gong.

Little Heartbreak Girl, Tom Petty via Let It Be era Beatles is the centrepiece, the heartbeat of this thing. It’s an emotional narrative, just enough story to convince you it’s fiction but there’s too much truth here, you can hear it in every tremble, every lick, this means something. And her wonderful band, as with everything else here, play the best they can be, subtle, driving, quiet like The Heartbreakers that were once Tom’s…Don’t Call The Police sounds like the Big Rock Song in a modern musical, a stunning breathy vocal to match the serious drama of the music because …Don’t Call The Police (“If you wanna live another day”) is a different kind of blues in an unchanged world. She sounds devastated and defiant in equal measure, an absolute tour de force.

You Still Got Me itself is an old-school soul ballad in the style of Otis Redding, a future wedding song for people who pay attention to the words, a tearjerker in a good way, redemption for the broken, a song about waiting for someone to be good to you. Pimp Like That is not, at least not in the same way. Similar to …Don’t Call The Police, but the flip side to that is more of a fantasy tale of a gambler, just as dramatic but more narrative, more story than truth, though there are specific truths there too. Machine Gun Vibrato seems to be a self-mocking song about not taking things too seriously, an atmospheric rocker that gives her plenty of chance to prove the lyrics true. It would have fitted nicely on the From Dusk Til Dawn soundtrack.

From the cover art on down, the whole thing is distilled class, a perfectly executed and beautiful sounding collection of excellence. This voice of hers, this God-given instrument of wonder, may stay with you for a good while longer than expected, and its grace may soothe you for some time to come.

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All words by MK Bennett, you can find his author’s archive here plus his Twitter and Instagram