Search - Laura Love, Orville Johnson :: Sweeter the Juice

Laura does it again!

MusicLover | 10/27/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"On the heels of her award winning 2007 release, Negrass, Laura knocks it out of the acoustic funk/Americana park again, with her 2009 release, The Sweeter the Juice. The Sweeter The Juice is a collaboration with the master of country blues guitar and Dobro, Orville Johnson. Laura is well known for her soaring vocals, uniquely played funky bass and her vastly divergent musical tastes, having written and covered a wide range of styles including funk, blues, R&B, jazz, gospel, folk, country and bluegrass since she began recording and touring in the early 1990s. In recent years, Laura has become more and more captivated by the intensity and complexity of bluegrass and old time American folk music. While she approaches traditional music with the utmost respect, you can't take the funk out of the girl who cut her teeth on Bootsy Collins and you can hear her trademark percussive snap and pluck even while playing the most straight ahead 1-4-5 bass patterns.



Orville Johnson is nothing short of a one man band, a recognized A-List dobro man (check out the line up for the 2009 Reso Summit in Nashville - Orville is teaching alongside Rob Ickes, Cindy Cashdollar, Sally Van Meter and Randy Kohrs), slide and picked country/blues guitarist and mandolin player. He also contributes tasteful electric guitar and some bass on The Sweeter The Juice. If that weren't enough, he has a powerhouse voice that has no problem keeping up with Laura.



Laura has long been interested in music with roots in England, Ireland and Scotland and how they intersected with the rhythms and instruments brought to the U.S. by slaves from Africa, South America and the Caribbean, forming the basis of American folk music which lead to country, blues and jazz. Indeed, the first tune on the CD, Cotton Eyed Joe / Ruby (Are You Mad At Your Man), is an astonishing audio buffet featuring Orville's exquisite guitar picking and Laura's fresh take on Joe (her interest in the old country chestnut having a lot to do with her interpretation of the tune as a portrait of a light skinned, "cotton eyed" African American) morphing into Orville's big delivery of Ruby with jazzy close harmony backing vocals by Laura. I guarantee you haven't heard either tune done quite like this.



The rest of the CD includes Laura's originals, Load Up (her haunting vision of a slave era work song), Passin' (an unlikely fun romp through skin tone issues within the Black community), Yes We Can (Laura's infectious hurrah for the results of the 2008 election) and a grand selection of Negro spirituals, Civil Rights era anthems, and gospel tunes, done up with bluegrass, country and blues arrangements. The variety is impressive (Orville even covers an obscure Robbie Robertson tune, Livin' In A Dream) and the execution is stunning.



Highly recommended for fans of either artist and for anyone looking for something fresh in the acoustic Americana field."