Description
Lorette Velvette – Rude Angel – Compact Disc
Lorette Velvette’s Rude Angel is a compelling album that showcases the artist’s versatile musicality and draws from various roots music genres. Released in 1999, the album captures the essence of Velvette’s bluesy rock style, blending elements of rockabilly, country, and soul.
Rude Angel features Velvette’s distinctive vocals and guitar work, creating a sound that is both gritty and soulful. The album’s tracks often explore themes of love, heartbreak, and resilience, delivered with a raw and authentic energy that resonates with listeners.
Standout tracks like Rude Angel and “Trouble” exemplify Velvette’s ability to infuse traditional blues and rock elements with a modern edge. The album’s production, rooted in a classic rock aesthetic, complements Velvette’s performances, creating a cohesive and engaging listening experience.
While Lorette Velvette may not be a household name, Rude Angel remains a testament to her skill as a musician and her commitment to crafting music that pays homage to the roots while incorporating contemporary influences. The album is a hidden gem for those who appreciate soulful, blues-infused rock with a touch of vintage flair.
A whirlwind of musical dialogue sweeps throughout the 18-track compilation of Lorette Velvette’s first three recordings as she dances all around her punk and Delta blues leanings, showcases her glam rock tendencies, and effortlessly juxtaposes them with her trashy Cramps versus Sonic Youth side. What makes this collection of songs stand up after the admirable shock of Velvette’s diversity? The song writing, it is superb.
On tracks like “Cherry Red,” she acts as the architect, building the foundation of the tune with a massive slide guitar riff. Then as the deconstructionist, she pulls the song apart, exposing the bones of the arrangement. Fuzzy bass along with big, roomy drums and distant, treated vocals expose the work of a musical junkyard sculpture artist and mad scientist. Velvette easily sinks into beautiful and melancholic numbers as well. “Rude Angel,” a piano ballad clever in the way that it disguises its own complexity, opens up into lush, arching backing vocals to carry the hook of the song prepared by Velvette’s earnest delivery. A choir of violins enters, and the song dreams away into a wonderful payoff.
Just as startling as the diversity of this collection is how easily these songs flow into each other. Velvette seems to hold a consistency amid the cacophony that is hard to pin down, even covers of T. Rex (“20th Century Boy”), David Bowie (“Boys Keep Swinging”), and Fred McDowell (“You Got to Move”) feel at home here. Perhaps the reason Rude Angel plays like a single album (even though its contents are culled from three), is precisely because she seems to take music as an exercise in diversity and the music she’s playing is so obviously loved. Perhaps it is her vocals that tremble slightly as they escape into whichever style she has laid down before her.
Only the last two tracks on the collection, an instrumental version of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Happy Christmas (War Is Over)” and her fife and drum composition “Frog and Peach,” don’t quite fit here. Both are delightful and fun and further extend her seemingly boundless diversity, but the point has already been made within the first 16 tracks. However, because these tracks sit at the end of the CD, they serve as bonus tracks to a wonderful collection of otherwise out of print music by a talented songwriter and performer from Memphis, TN
Brand new, never played and still sealed in the original plastic seal
Okra Tone Records 2000
Track Listing
1. Boys Keep Swinging
2. Cherry Red
3. Oh How It Rained
4. Don’t Crowd Your Mind
5. Eager Boy
6. Come On Over
7. You Got To Move
8. Rude Angel
9. Dream Hotel
10. Going Down South
11. Godforsaken Town
12. 20th Century Boy
13. Sleepy Eyes
14. Pretty Perfect Lovers
15. Special Rider
16. Broke The Circle
17. Happy Xmas (War is Over)
18. Frog and Peach
