Kat Danser adds a touch of gospel to her blues

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Edmonton based swamp blueswoman Kat Danser has a touch of  that old time religion on her fourth CD “Baptized By The Mud.” Just a little bit. While there is a bit of religious imagery sprinkled throughout the CD, it is definitely not your traditional gospel album as  the songs explore a cast of characters who are down, out and perhaps exemplify the more hypocritical side of the overtly religious.

Click here to hear Kat Danser
She kicks things off with a toe tapping gospel number “ “Where Will You Be” When the Sun Goes Down.”
 The title track “Baptized By The Mud”  is powered by a gutbucket banjo and an accordion which gives the song a French tinged sound and dressed with some steel guitar.


 She sings in her whiskey weathered voice which is reminiscent of other first ladies of the blues like Bonnie Raitt and Canadian blueswomen like Rita Chiarelli.


 She sounds a little like Patsy Cline on “Crazy For You,” which also has a beautiful slide guitar solo played by producer Steve Dawson, though Danser also plays slide guitar and resolectric guitar.


 It also features a nice organ solo payed by Derek  Havers.
 She shows her more sensitive jazzy side on “Hear Me Out, Think It Over.” Which has a pretty jazzy, blues tinged guitar solo.
There are  lot of appealing, slower blues numbers on the CDS like “None of Us Are Free,” which also is one of the more gospel influenced numbers, enhanced by another tasteful Hammond organ solo. The background vocals help make this track.
 There is plenty of appealingly subdued slide guitar throughout the CD and  background  vocals that  enhance the gospel feel of the CD.


 She has a really soothing voice especially on tracks like “ Nothin’ At All.”
“ Oh Mary Don’t You Weep” is one of the songs closely related to actual gospel music, though it is a slower blues number with another excellent slide guitar solo and more  subdued organ.


Her cover of Ma Rainey’s 1928 blues song “Prove it To me Blues,” is a highlight with the eyebrow raising lyric “ I went out last night with a crowd of my friends, they must have been women, because I  don’t like no men.”
She also does an excellent cover of Mississippi Fred McDowell’s “You Gotta Move.”
 “Winsome, Lonesome Kind of Gal” is a quirky highlight of her own, though more country than the rest of the CD.

— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
CD: Baptized By The Mud
Artist: Kat Danser
Genre:
folk/ blues
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