Beth Hart

For anyone who feels that Beth Hart has found her ‘comfort zone’ her new album will prove that the lady is both moving on and reaching back to her core.

She started her career playing and trying to make a living as a jazz singer before finding a greater acceptance as a rocker but she has always had artists like Billie Holliday and Dinah Washington in her soul and this album most certainly shows the love in her heart for those great artistes of her youth. That having been said, this is as modern and ‘now’ as anything she has ever done.

She explained to me that recording her last album had been “a year and a half of basic hell” as one of her producers on the ‘Better Than Home’ album, Michael Stevens, had been suffering terminal illness and in tandem with co-producer Rob Mathes had been driving her down a much poppier path.
As soon as the recording was finished she turned to her label to fund recording of another album to give her the chance to recover from the emotional trauma of recording ‘Better Than Home’. She chose Oliver Leiber to produce and he brought her into his home studio at Toluca Lake and put a band together to work on her songs.

She enthused about the whole process saying that the ambience of the sessions and the pleasure of working with guys such as Michael Landau (guitar), Waddy Wachtel (guitar), Brian Allen (bass), Rick Marotta (drums), Jim Cox (piano), Dean Parks (acoustic guitar) and Ivan Neville (B3 and organ) meant that she could concentrate on bringing them the songs, knowing that they would help her do justice to them.

She told me “We had a couple of weeks with me playing him songs down the phone and he rounded up such a great band and we worked on 16 songs in just three days. It was such a wonderful, wonderful thing. I was still anxious because I’m a control freak even with people I love I have a hard time trusting people but he was so respectful and loving to me and the songs – these guys are such old dogs, they’ve been doing it for so long they’re so good at their craft, they’ve mastered their instruments. They were so sensitive and it was like everyone was under the influence of a holy spirit – it was so relaxed. Oliver is a brutally hard worker so mixing took a while but he is also an incredibly sensitive person and vulnerable as well as focused and I’m really proud of what we achieved on this record. It made me remember how much fun it is to make a record”.

I commented that there is a jazzy feel to the album and she said that “that is something when I was young, young, young I started at as a writer and very quickly decided that the business was very hard for me to handle so I switched over to hard rock, both writing and performing. I don’t know what happened but when I got into my thirties and got proper medication for my bipolar and then I got together with Joe (Bonamassa) and started going back to the music that I grew up with, going back to Dinah Washington, Anita O’Day. Let me speak like a lady and use more of my feminine side and let’s see if I can write music that would be worthy of those heroes.”

I asked Beth how she enjoyed her show at the Union Chapel last year – a gig that many rate as one of the best ever at the venue and probably one of the highspots of the year anywhere – and she admitted that the thought of playing solo, no band, scared her terribly. “It was absolutely, horrifically terrifying, more than anything I’ve ever, ever don in my career. It wasn’t until two weeks before the gig that I thought I might do it – even though it was booked months before. I come in to this beautiful church and I’ve got this angry terrible look on my face and I get out there, hang my head for the first six songs and then suddenly the most beautiful feeling – like a huge comforting blanket came over me and something whispered in my ear that I was among friends and you are safe. And then it was great and I had the best time ever. For months I was on cloud nine about it.”

So, we come to the album. A shock.
From the opening vocals of ‘Jazz Man’ her confidence is through the roof. She has a great band behind her and you can hear her strutting her stuff with a stunning jazz number – Peggy Lee could have done this one.

Throughout the album she shows off vocal chops like no other around today and when she gets sassy the atmosphere closes in and she just caresses your soul with stunning songs.

‘Love Gangster’ has a New Orleans shimmy and an Eartha Kitt vibrato in her voice – downright nasty and sexy as hell.
She doesn’t just groove in the jazz vein though – for those who like the rock that she made her name with there is ‘Fat Man’.
Rock with a funky heart and a sneering vocal that slaps you around the chops with every line or the title song, a slow burning rock ballad with dense and dark mood.

Every track is a cracker but ‘Coca Cola’ stands out as one of the best songs she has written and the dreamy vocal style, kitten with claws and so acid sweet. Incredible to think she had to push for it to be included on the album.

Beth Hart is a major player, a genuine star in a world of fakes and wannabees and after the trauma of her last album she has come back stronger and with real dynamism. The shows in Europe this year promise to be great with an artiste at the top of her game.

Picture by Mona Nordoy
November 2016 UK Tour dates as follows:
Birmingham Symphony Hall Friday 11 November
Sage Gateshead Sunday 13 November
Glasgow O2 Academy Monday 14 November
Bristol Colston Hall Thursday 17 November
Bournemouth Solent Hall Saturday 19 November
Manchester Bridgewater Hall Monday 21 November
London Royal Festival Hall Wednesday 23 November (SOLD OUT)