Due to unforeseen circumstances I found myself unexpectedly
able to catch this Edinburgh outing by Charlotte Marshall and the 45s, but at
the same time unable to get there until a few songs had passed by. No matter, as Charlotte and her gang made it
worth the effort.
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| Charlotte Marshall - no messing
Photo courtesy of Stuart Stott
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About 9 months ago Charlotte Marshall and the 45s won a
‘Future Of The Blues’ contest co-sponsored by The Blues Magazine and the Mascot
label, and this performance suggests three good reasons why. First, the New Orleans jazziness of their sound
offers something different from the herd.
Second, their musicianship is strong across the board. And third – Charlotte Marshall is a
no-messing, 24 carat, knock-your-socks-off performer.
Despite wrestling with a far from great sound on the vocal
front, Little Miss M musters enough power to cut through in the end. But she also inhabits the role of a Bourbon
Street chanteuse with panache, selling the band’s Big Easy stylings both
vocally and visually.
So it is that they can take material from different strands
of the blues-soul-funk spectrum, and stir them into a NOLA-slanted gumbo,
whether it’s the medley of ‘Walking The Dog’ and ‘Lucille’ with which they
close their first set, or Stevie Wonder’s ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’ – or most
entertainingly, their mash-up of Peggy Lee’s ‘Fever’ with the guitar riff from
‘All Along The Watchtower’, which guitarist Fraser John Lindsay follows up with
a Santana-esque solo.
Covers may still predominate in their set, just about, but
the scattering of originals is encouraging, including their current single ‘Big
Easy Blues’. New song ‘Dig My Love’ is
downright sultry, with its lush organ sounds, while the up-tempo ‘Devil With A
Lipstick On’ is driven along energetically by the horns of Gordon Dickson (sax)
and Fenwick Lawson (trombone). And the
horns are also insistent in the closing ‘Just Can’t Help Myself’, on which the 45s build up a serious head of steam, with Dickson’s sax squawking and Tim Brough giving it large on piano.
Throughout all of this Marshall is alive to every solo,
crescendo, twist and turn of what they’re up to, in between giving it her
sassy, dressed-to-the-nines best on vocals.
It may be a team effort, but she doesn’t half make a difference to the
end result.
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