Search - Ann Rabson :: Struttin' My Stuff

A flat out great album

Diana K. Bishop | New London, CT USA | 09/11/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Great repertoire, wonderful arrangements, and a woman who clearly sings happily and healthily from the brain, heart, and even some lower anatomical regions. You can't help but love her, and it's clear she loves what she does. This wonderful music will make you feel better if you're low, and make you feel EVEN better if you're not."

Cuts on this album will rotate as favorites as time passes

Arthur Shuey | Wilmington, NC USA | 01/30/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Ann Rabson

Struttin' My Stuff

M.C. Records MC0041



Many of us remember Ann Rabson (keyboards, vocals, acoustic guitar) from Saffire - The Uppity Blues Women. They performed several times at the old Front Street News in the early `90s. A recent émigré from Richmond at the time, I spent hours before Saffire shows and between sets conjecturing with fellow Virginian Ann Rabson about why things were so [expletive deleted] up here in Wilmington.



We remember her sense of humor and how she ate hecklers for breakfast, particularly the time a Wilmington musician in the audience claimed that a male musician playing no better than the women in Saffire would be booed off the bandstand. Ann looked at the heckler, asked over the microphone what the difference was between a man and a vibrator, then explained, "One is cold and mechanical and the other takes batteries."



Last year's Saffire show at UNC-Wilmington was like a packed house reunion of the downtown bar crowd from a decade earlier. In the time since Wilmington first met Ann Rabson, she's received four nominations for W.C. Handy Awards as Traditional Blues Female Artist of the Year. In 1998 her first solo album, Music Makin' Mama, was nominated as Album of the Year in both the Traditional Blues and Acoustic Blues categories. In 1992 her composition Elevator Man was nominated as Song of the Year. Ann has toured Belgium, Holland, Italy, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil with Saffire, and Canada both with Saffire and with Jackson Delta. She has made two solo European tours; in 1998 she toured Europe with piano legend Erwin Helfer and played a week-long solo engagement at the Jazz Club of Hong Kong, and we can assume that she's made the same strong, warm impression worldwide that she made on Wilmington all those years ago.



"Struttin' My Stuff," the new solo album from our old friend, is smooth, authoritative and strong, and it's everything those who know and remember her could hope for. Material ranges from ancient blues piano standards like "Pigalle Love" and "Not as Sorry As I Used To Be" up through uptempo late `50s - early `60s R & B hits "Schooldays" and "Check Mr. Popeye" to original Rabson remarks ("Hassle Attack") and reminiscences ("Love Song[Ode to George]") penned specifically for this release. The sixteen songs on "Struttin' My Stuff" break down to seven solo piano and vocal numbers, three solo acoustic guitar and vocal tunes, and six cuts with a drums/bass rhythm section. As of this writing, my favorite's Check Mr. Popeye," but that's probably because reminders of New Orleans dance crazes from several decades ago are always welcome to me. I think that the cuts on this album will rotate as favorites as time passes.

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