{"id":24480,"date":"2023-01-14T05:30:27","date_gmt":"2023-01-14T10:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=24480"},"modified":"2022-12-13T10:02:54","modified_gmt":"2022-12-13T15:02:54","slug":"album-review-demetria-taylor-doin-what-im-supposed-to-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/14\/album-review-demetria-taylor-doin-what-im-supposed-to-do\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Demetria Taylor \u2013 Doin\u2019 What I\u2019m Supposed to Do"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Singer Demetria Taylor grew up in a musical household. Her father was Eddie Taylor, rhythm guitarist for Jimmy Reed. Demetria launched her own career, winning the B.L.U.E.S. on Halstead Blues Diva contest in 2010. She released her debut album, Bad Girl<\/i>, on Delmark in 2011. That record showcased Taylor\u2019s expressive, gritty and soulful vocal style, and featured assured, spare backing by a crack instrumental ensemble. A highlight of the collection is its title track, an uptempo remake of her late father\u2019s 1955 single, \u201cBad Boy.\u201d<\/p>\n

It would be more than a decade before Taylor returned with a follow-up, but Doin\u2019 What I\u2019m S<\/i>upposed to Do<\/i> vividly demonstrates that Taylor has developed as an artist in the intervening years. The straightforward Chicago blues flavor that informed Bad Girl<\/i> remains at the heart of Taylor\u2019s approach, but her the intensity and expressiveness of her voice has only deepened.<\/p>\n

As showcased on the album\u2019s opener, \u201c83 Highway,\u201d Taylor\u2019s vocal range has expanded. She can still churn out the gutbucket roar, but there\u2019s a newfound nuance in her delivery that makes the material even more satisfying. And the instrumental work is superb as well. \u201c83 Highway\u201d features some extended lead guitar work by Billy Flynn; his sinewy playing functions as a foil to Taylor\u2019s singing; the result often takes the form of a vocal-guitar duet.<\/p>\n

The ensemble demonstrates its versatility by shifting gears completely for the burning, propulsive \u201cBaby Be Good.\u201d Here Taylor completely abandons the gruff delivery style that characterized her earlier work in favor of a highly accessible dance\/r&b approach. The song\u2019s well-developed arrangement showcases Taylor\u2019s vocal, but it still leaves plenty of space for the band to stretch out and dig in.<\/p>\n

Vocalist Deitra Farr \u2013 recipient of the 2017 Koko Taylor Queen of the Blues Award \u2013 guests on vocals for \u201cBlues Early This Morning.\u201d Her husky pipes mesh wonderfully with Taylor\u2019s voice on the tune, and the brief spoken back-and-forth between the two is a delight.<\/p>\n

Though its title seems to reference Taylor\u2019s spotlight number of a decade ago, \u201cBad Girl Day\u201d is a song of a very different character. It\u2019s a soulful, r&b flavored number, one that finds the singer expanding on the smooth side of her vocal approach. There\u2019s a strong dance-oriented feel to \u201cWelfare Blues,\u201d with subtle yet insistent use of wah-wah guitar at its core. Brian James\u2019 organ solo on the track is thrilling, and it leaves the listener wanting more. James turns to piano for another stellar solo on the kinetic \u201cNursing My Kitty Cat.\u201d<\/p>\n

The smoky \u201cI\u2019m Gonna Tell It\u201d opens with some deliciously inviting lead guitar licks, and the band takes a minimalist approach, clearing the sonic landscape for Taylor to lay down another assured vocal. And while the approach is used sparingly on the album, Taylor\u2019s double-tracked voice is a highlight of the record on its closing number \u201cYoung Gun Taylor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crystalline production by Delmark\u2019s Julia Miller and Elbio Barai helps keep the focus on the music, with nothing in the way of filigree or gimmickry. The sound of Doin\u2019 What I\u2019m Supposed to Do<\/i> is an expert balancing of living, breathing audio document and gleaming, sophisticated studio production.<\/p>\n

And speaking of that Koko Taylor award, Demetria Taylor is the well-deserved recipient of that honor for 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Singer Demetria Taylor grew up in a musical household. Her father was Eddie Taylor, rhythm guitarist for Jimmy Reed. Demetria launched her own career, winning the B.L.U.E.S. on Halstead Blues […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24481,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,49,65],"tags":[5018],"class_list":["post-24480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-new-release","category-review","tag-demetria-taylor","cat-9-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24480"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24482,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24480\/revisions\/24482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}