Album Review: Beth Hart – You Still Got Me
3 min read
American singer-songwriter Beth Hart isn’t a name your average chart junkie is overly familiar with… but she’s a big deal. The LA native rose to fame from a track appearing in a ‘Beverly Hills, 90210’ episode almost a generation ago (if you’re unaware of the reference, ask an older person). But Hart is a true musician’s musician, often cited as having exceptional contralto vocals, she is regularly seen picking up Blues Awards across the globe. Her latest offering to the album Gods, You Still Got Me (under Provogue/Mascot Records), is her eleventh solo album, and Hart promised to continue being one of the most compelling voices in contemporary blues and rock…. Let’s have a listen and find out…
Kicking off with drums and piano chords, opening track Savior with a Razor is very much on the rock side of blues (no doubt influenced by Slash playing on the track), with Beth showcasing her incredible vocal range – a strong start. Eric Gales is the next (and final) ‘featuring’ artist on the album, and his unmistakable style is felt in Suga N My Bowl, which continues the blues rock style, with Gales getting a guitar solo, which, frankly, I was surprised was omitted from the opener. Never Underestimate a Gal takes a detour stylistically from the previous track, Old school country in its spoken verse, and opens with a take on the unmistakable “East Asian Riff” (true story: a western creation composed around 1847, and originally called the “Aladdin Quick Step” taken from an Aladdin stage show), and this is followed by Drunk on Valentine which is a great down tempo blues track, full of remorse and feeling, with great use of the solo trumpet to compliment the flow of the vocals. A song that sounds like a homage to the styles of the country legend, Wanna Be Big Bad Johnny Cash has elements of the country legend’s unmistakeable style in both the lyrics and musical composition, but it manages to somehow remain an unmistakably Beth Hart track, and is actually my favourite track on the album.
Launching ourselves into the second half of the album, we are met with the most recent single release, Wonderful World – a chart friendly track (though I’m not a huge fan of the chorus ‘won-won-won-won-wonderful world’ element of the lyrics which, for me, taints the track somewhat), and this is followed by the first single release from the album, Little Heartbreak Girl, which is a great down tempo track with elements of blues and soul (and some fantastic gospel backing vocals) with fantastic lyrics. Don’t Call the Police returns to the rockier side of blues, with a real kind of stripped back, minimalist Alannah Myles Black Velvet vibe to it, whilst title track and second release You Still Got Me is full on slow dance blues music, and clearly (in my opinion, anyway) the best of the single releases. Penultimate track Pimp Like That is a great, moody, slow and heavy blues track (and close to my favourite track on the album, and Machine Gun Vibrato rounds off the album in style – a galloping beat driving this rock track along to heavy guitars and fantastic vocal wailing.
You Still Got Me is a fantastic Blues Rock album that will please the swathes of Beth Hart fans and also bring some new listeners to her name. It’s not trying to re-write a genre – there isn’t anything ground breaking in these eleven tracks, but it also doesn’t feel like Beth has straight up ripped ideas from other artists, with the tracks that have elements of familiarity feeling more like a loose homage rather than an easy copy – an album of familiarity but yet originality… no easy feat!
