Chastity Brown

The simple truth is that music of this quality and depth rarely makes the kind of imp[act that it should – whether the problem is that the purveyors like something easy to pigeon-hole or if it is that the listening public cannot handle the intensity and sheer depth of the music I don’t know. What I do know is that it is a crying shame because this album is one of the most affecting and utterly lovely albums I’ve heard all year.

Chastity Brown hails from Boston originally and her father was an African American Jazz & Blues musician which possibly explains where a lot of her roots come from. It is easy to hear the likes of Nina Simone and Bonnie Raitt in her way of singing but she has a country edge as well which maybe comes from her Irish mother or from her upbringing in Union City Tennessee which borders the Appalachian mountains and Memphis – either way she seems to have absorbed more influences than you can shake a stick at and combined them into a sound that is uniquely her own.

She says of herself ‘Learning about Leadbelly’s influence on Woody Gutherie opened up a whole new world to me,
prior to this knowledge I felt alone in the music I was creating. I did not know how to reconcile my
storytelling impulse with my Soul-inflected vocal upbringing’

It is almost impossible to pick the album apart – all of the 11 tracks bear her unique signature of passionate and emotive vocals - but there are high points aplenty.
The opener, ‘House Been Burnin’, has the feel of a deep south Blues with a simple steel stringed guitar against handclaps and then her vocals almost creep in with a strong drawl and you find yourself nodding along to a dark and dense tale with the chills running up and down your back.
‘When We Get There’ is almost Dylanesque, continuing the slow pace but building the vocal to a keening love song/poem that hits every emotion on the way.
The violin opening to ‘Solely’ has folk origins and the song continues the dense emotions of the previous tracks.
By now the intensity is almost unbearable but there is also a sweet joyousness to the singing that keeps you connected and daring to wish for more and more you definitely get with ‘After You’ as the music lightens up with a banjo underpinning her vocal and backing vocals taking it up a notch – the effect is like the sudden shower after a hot and humid day, coming along just as the intensity is getting oppressive.
And the album continues with great song after great song, stories and affairs, mood changes and different styles but always that wonderful voice and closeness to the music.

This album should be on the player of anyone who likes and understands music – definitely up there in the top ten lists this year methinks