Barbara Blue Sings the Blues for These Times on ‘From the Shoals’

These seem to be boom times for the blues. There have never been so many new self-released products by young independent artists, old-time practitioners on obscure labels, and major recording musicians doing their “blues” albums. Not since the British Invasion have so many non-Americans appeared so obsessed with the distinctly African American genre. Maybe it’s just the residual reaction to COVID or the disintegrating new world order in which we live, but people are finding comfort in our shared misery.

Barbara Blue was born and raised in Pittsburgh and spent much of the 1980s singing at various clubs in Detroit and her hometown. She produced and recorded her debut CD, Out of the Blue, in 1994 at the Control Room on Pittsburgh’s South Side with guitarist Ford Thurston and drummer Ray DeFade. Blue has spent most of the 21st century based in Memphis, a town known for its blues history.

From the Shoals is Blue’s lucky 13th album. She made it in Muscle Shoals and named it after the legendary locale where it was recorded. It’s this thing about the blues and place. The blues have no place—they can be found everywhere. The blues have a sense of place—they come from a particular location that bears the traits of its geographic origins. Both statements are true, and they both lie. Blue’s contribution provides evidence for this duality.

Much of From the Shoals is your basic gutbucket spill my heart on your sleeve blues with feeling. Blue capably covers a few classics. Her version of “Tell Mama” is more Janis Joplin than Etta James, but Blue keeps the beat moving straight ahead. Even the longer songs, such as the seven-plus minute “Too Far”, never go off-track. Blue is not afraid to use repetition to make a point, but she steers clear of side roads. She will change her intonations and tempos rather than jump melodies and lyrics.

Blue co-wrote most of the songs. These tracks are the most interesting ones and share a spirituality. What makes “Nothing Lasts Forever”, “Song of the River”, and “Trail of Tears” blues tracks is not the way in which Blue delivers them as much as they embody heartfelt sentiments about our shared purposes in life. Bell might not understand the forces that make us human that exist both within and outside us, but she is sensitive to their different realities.  

When it comes to inside voices, we are all crazy. The most fun cut on From the Shoals is “Nutthouse Blues” (sample line: “I don’t love you no more / I don’t love you no less”). There’s a sultry, sexual component to our inner feelings. In terms of our place in the world, there is a grittiness to the singer’s voice that bespeaks her urban origins. This may not be literally true as much as it is purposely constructed. Blue recreates the Memphis blues with a cosmopolitan sensibility. The record’s title may refer to natural beauty, but the singer imbues her appreciation with the knowledge that beauty can also be a curse.