Blues With a Backbone
Artist: Michaela Rae
URL: www.michaelaraeguitar.com 
Label: Independent label
Length: Time: 9 tracks / 41:03

*Spoiler alert*

Well, not really. That is, not unless you don't look at the cover of the CD before you sample the first track, "Green Onions." Nice blues-guitar, huh? Yep.

Okay - here's the spoiler: it's a girl. A fourteen year-old girl! At the risk of sounding sexist (and ageist, I suppose) - I think that you'll find this blues guitarist from Colorado has some surprisingly considerable chops, not to mention the extraordinary good taste to cover songs by Booker T, Buddy Guy, and both Jimmy and Stevie Ray Vaughan. 

Backed by Matt Henderson on drums, Michael Olson on bass, and no less than Dave Beegle on guitar, Michaela handles the up-front work with taste, technical skill, and an obvious knowledge of the work of the blues greats whose music she covers. Of course there's that undefinable edge that it takes years and a certain degree of maturity to translate onto a little silver disc, and the lack of that intensityt might be the only weakness in her playing ...but, man - fourteen?! And they say she's been playing for about ten years already, if you want to be even more afraid.

There is one word of caution here, however, that you really need to know. There are a few vocal tracks on this recording. Michaela - why'd you do it? This young woman certainly can play but she certainly should not sing. I suppose it's a physical reality, but a fourteen year old girl with a very generic, unspectacular voice (and this is an accurate description) tends to sound like something from Disney Radio. Stevie Ray had the gravitas to sing "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and make it work but Michaela doesn't yet have the (forgive me) chops. So, in short - the guitar playing is the real deal, but the voice is not. The ratio is four songs out of nine that have vocals, so you have the instrumentals beating them out by a small edge - and the instrumentals cook.

The project is perfectly produced by Beegle, who basically lets the instruments speak for themselves with a minimum of studio bling attached. Do yourself a favor and look this young lady up on YouTube if you need to convince yourself that a fourteen year-old can handle blistering tunes like "SRV Shuffle." 

Or, you could just listen to Blues With a Backbone...

Bert Saraco
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