Flanfire

The CD of the YEAR -- has to be the brand spanking new Natalie Zoe offering, Seven Chords and the Truth. Caught Nat at Waterloo on Friday and visited with co-producer Fred Remmert, who was beaming at the work he had coordinated (but had to leave early to get back into the studio on another project).

Let's face it. Natalie Zoe is no newcomer to Austin - she was voted best solo performer here in 1977 (when she MUST have been 10 years old!). She's also had stints singing background vocals for Don Henley and opening opening for and/or singing background vocals with Warren Zevon, Lucinda Williams, Muddy Waters, Taj Mahal, and Malford Milligan (in many different bands). She has her jazzy side (check our her Never Too Old to Swing), her funk side (often with brother Malford), her folk side, her rock and roll side, her gospel side - she's just one chord short of being an octagon.

Which is why the title - Seven Chords and the Truth -- eleven of Natalie's own songs with a plethora of Austin's top musicians playing and singing with her. Every song is airplay worthy in one format or another, but the title song is perhaps the best of all.

Start with Papa Mali and "Uncle Crusty" - a guy who sounds a lot like the former lead singer for Storyville - on lead guitar and backing vocals. Add regular Selton Cole on bass and Les Fisher on drums (two of the guys who played with her at Waterloo), Paul Brainard on guitar (Alex Valentine handled the chops at Waterloo), and Sniz Robinson on congas and percussion. This song has a psychedelic feel (Greezy Wheels, anyone?) that just about every Austin (and other real) musician can relate to well.

Going backwards on the CD, we find "Peace Tonight" - featuring Kaz Kazanoff on sax in the jazziest (torch song) cut here. Next back is a paean to her daughter Sasha Ortiz - a featured backup vocalist (along with pal Rashay) at the Waterloo gig - called "Little Bird." Folks, this song alone is worth the price of the CD - thanks to an incredible mandolin solo by Warren Hood. The message of the song - I have heard it said, "give your children two lasting things - One is roots - and the other is wings."

Back up one more to the very bluesy "Broke Down Daddy," featuring Rob Roy Parnell on harmonica - plus a chorus of "party animals" all saying goodbye to a ne'er do well former boyfriend who prefers his "comforts" (Southern and all) to his woman. Then we all cry to "Every Teardrop" - one of several songs here featuring the Grooveline Horns. This is pure funk, the kind of funk you get into when you suddenly learn you man is splitsville without warning.

Then it's "Winter" featuring the inimitable Nick Connelly on piano and organ - a melancholy song that asks, " Is it really lucky to be so damn old?"

Perhaps the rockingest cut on the record (the R&B kind) is "Judge & Jury" - with Nick Connelly AND Papa Mali AND a heckuva chorus featuring Sasha and the gang. Then it's "Nocturnal Reverie," with some hot guitar licks from L. C. Steels - a quiet song about that time late into the early morning before dawn when the songwriting juices often get to flowing.

Back up another one to "Texas Sunrise,"which is just Nat on guitar and Brian Standefer on cello - a different version than the one she recorded in 1993. Song No. 2 is "Do Me Like That," another raucus Grooveline horns cut with Papa Mali too and the hot backing vocals on the chorus. More funky R&B. Leading off the CD is "Tell Your Story Well," with David Grissom on guitar - a song that looks into the eyes of the homeless and suggests that we are all in need of a little humility because the signs they are holding up "could be yours or mine."

Natalie - for the record - comes across these days as a combination of a very young Emmy Lou Harris (in, for example, her Gram Parsons days) and a very sassy Tina Turner in the Eighties and early Nineties. After too many years of standing in the shadows and playing to empty houses in a certain bar on South Congress (and god knows what all else), Seven Chords and the Truth should (if anyone in radio has any sense) turn her into a BIG STAR!!!!!!!

Here's my deal -- go and listen - best in person. You WILL be a winner!