I Want

Cathy Jean

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***** 1999 WAMA Nominated Best Blues Album!! ***** 'You have to have a certain attitude to be a great blues singer. Depressed at life, upset with your woman (or man), and prepared for the bad luck that inevitably comes with every decision you make-- these are the attributes you must possess to bring listeners into your sphere of misery. Not many female singers make the grade. They try for bold and brassy, but forget how to tone it down, resulting in a scream for help rather than a cry for mercy. The ones who do well understand that you must feel the blues, not merely vocalize. Cathy Jean relates well with the agony of defeat, otherwise known as the blues. On 'I Want', her second CD, she employs a lot of different styles to express her sadness with broken relationships, all of them effective. She starts off though with the rather deceptive 'Be Glad'. Set to a rousing jump-blues beat, Cathy Jean tells her ex-lover to be grateful she doesn't have a gun because he'd be six feet under otherwise. Great scat vocals and a bouncing blues harp underlie the humorous but sharp tone of the song. Very head-bopping music to begin the blues beguine. Strong conviction in the vocals also power 'Unfinished Business' where Cathy Jean threatens to punch the other woman's lights out. Mark Wenner from the Nighthawks on harmonica plus a strong backbeat via Bo Diddley also keep your feet a'goin as well. It also has, as a musical in-joke, a snatch of 'Who Do You Love?' thrown in for good measure. In 'How Many?', Cathy Jean will get her revenge in a tit-for-tat way. Catching her man looking at everybody in a very loving way (including his mother- how sick!), she beleives the only way to get back at him is to get ever-so-close withh all his buddies. Very clever lyrics plus terrific sax keep you hoping he gets his just desserts. The mood turns wistful in 'Why Don't You See Me?' written by Johnette Napolitano from Concrete Blonde. Cathy Jean turns in a beguiling vocal to underplay the yearning inside her. Very contained sax keeps the proceedings relaxed and tranquil. Other songs capture the various nuances of the blues from the Stonesy rocker 'I'm Your Girl' to the two-part 'Hate Chants' which pretty much let's loose every possible emotional rage you could feel towards a man who done you wrong. But it takes the last song on the CD, 'Blues Psalm', to convince you of Cathy Jean's talents. Simply sung to a lone saxophone, her plea to a higher being for the right to sing the blues conveys the power that this genre has to reach people. Her fervent prayer makes you care and hope that she is granted that request. Hopefully, this wish will always be received so that Cathy Jean will continue to make excellent albums. She joins such luminaries as Bonnie Raitt, Marcia Ball, and Koko Taylor, to name a few, in keeping the flame alive for blues singers. After all, she knows it's not necessarily what you sing that's important, it's how you sing it. And that makes a loser in love a winner in the ears of the blues-loving listeners!' --MUSIC MONTHLY MAGAZINE, USA 'Cathy Jean is a major talent waiting to be discovered. She has a blues inflected voice reminiscent of Janis Joplin. She is also a strikingly beautiful woman and a seasoned performer. If that's not enough she's a superb songwriter with 15 self-penned tunes here which stretch her talent in a number of directions. On the title track her voice blends with Keith Stafford's guitar and is reminiscent of Etta James at her best. But make no mistake Cathy Jean is an original talent. The plaintive blues ballad '4 in the morning' is followed by 'Unfinished Business' in which she sounds like a female Delbert McClinton. In the Tina Turner-inspired 'How Many' she laments the problems of love. Other songs honor the Stax-Volt sound, or shuffle along as Jon Carroll's organ blends with Cathy Jean's voice. Unrequited and lost loves dominate Cathy Jean's songwriting, and every song here is a masterpiece. Her band is superb with Stafford's guitar, Mike Crotty's saxophone, Benjie Porecki's piano and Steve Loecher's drums dominatin