Beth Rowley - Little Dreamer
Label: Uni Classics Jazz U 
Length: 11 tracks

Beth Rowley is petite and her delicate fresh face framed by a sea of gorgeous blonde ringlets leave you thinking cute and fragile. And there's nothing cute and fragile about it. Rowley has a big voice that heralds her arrival on the same record shelf as current UK favorites ' Duffy and Adele in the slip stream of the phenomenon that is Amy Winehouse but she ploughs a slightly different furrow. If the others have a bluesy ancestry, Rowley is of the negro-spiritual family tree. It is as though she has taken over from Ben Harper as the collaborator of the Blind Boys of Alabama with the black Gospel choir vocals on "Nobody's Fault But Mine" and "When the Rains Came." Not that this Missionary kid is all Gospel but her spiritual influences bringing hope to the nihilistic blues of her peer group. There are tinges of jazz and soul and R&B and pure unadulterated pop. She covers Dylan, adding a little reggae, on"I Shall Be Released", Motown on The Ronettes' "Be My Baby" and Billy Sherill on "Almost Persuaded." It is this last one that catches my attention in its depth of comment. A young girl gets tempted with charm to hedonism and selfish gratification but holds onto her pride and dignity; play it every Saturday night before going clubbing girls! Rowley has been sharing the stage and bands with Belfast's Duke Special of late, her boyfriend Ben Castle is the crucial arranging consultant for both artists and it is no surprise that Mr. Special turns up dueting on her cover of Dylan covering a Willie Nelson song, "Angels Flying too Close To the Ground." The song expresses the spiritual menu of the album; heavenly but never denying our earthedness! Having said all this about the covers on the album it needs to be noted that the original songs like"So Sublime" and "Oh My Life" stand up to anything else and are the ones we are hearing on the radio.

Her guitarist, and co-write on one of these songs, Paul Wilkinson told me, before I introduced her on stage at last year's Greenbelt festival, that when she opens her mouth she sounds like a record. He wasn't kidding! This is the introduction to a brand new star and even though it's a sweet introduction you can't help feeling that there is even better to come.

Steve Stockman

Steve Stockman is the Presbyterian Chaplain at Queens University, Belfast, Ireland, where he lives in community with 88 students. He has written two books Walk On; The Spiritual Journey of U2 which he is currently updating and The Rock Cries Out; Discovering Eternal Truth in Unlikely Music. He dabbles in poetry and songwriting and he has a weekly radio show on BBC Radio Ulster (listen anytime of day or night @ www.bbc.co.uk/ni/religion/rhythmandsoul). He has his own web page--Rhythms of Redemption at http://stocki.ni.org . He also tries to spend some time with his wife Janice and daughters Caitlin and Jasmine.