Candice Ivory

New Southern Vintage

Nola Blue Records

After pouring her soul and her slinky, stunning voice into three acclaimed jazz-oriented albums from her home in St. Louis, Candice Ivory reached back into her heart’s home for her 2023 release, When the Levee Breaks, the Music of Memphis Minnie. Ivory was born and raised on the outskirts of Memphis and the blues and gospel of the Mississippi Delta permeated her upbringing. As soon as she could, she sang in blues groups up and down Beale. So, the blues and the Minnie tribute were at once a return to her roots and a natural progression. As it should have, the album boosted Ivory’s profile considerably. It turns out too that it was the perfect prelude to New Southern Vintage, another blues album, this time ingeniously split into two parts. The first eight original songs feature Ivory’s band The Blue Bloods augmented by several guests. Those songs spotlight her ‘new’ way with the blues. The last five, played by a completely different group of musicians, place the focus on the ‘vintage.’

Ivory and every player present make big impressions all the way through New Southern Vintage, even though some of the melodies in the newly written songs are derived from previous classics. Fair enough, as that is often the case with blues songs. For instance, in “Ain’t So Blind,” the band cops from two different, obvious sources. Yet with Ivory at the forefront, they make the whole stomping affair excellent entertainment. The same applies to the rickety “Blue Blood,” from which the band took its name. That skilled band, comprised of guitarists Robert Allen Parker and Adam Hill, bassist Khari Wynn, and drummer Donnon R. Johnson, with Jan Hartmann often sitting in on harmonica, obviously knows the twists and turns of blues music inside and out.

They change the tempo and mood again with the swampy, ethereal airs of “Foolish Pleasure,” a song greatly enhanced by singer Yubu Kazungu, a native of Kenya now based in Memphis. Then, “Strong Black Mattie” rocks Hill Country style. The song, credited to Ivory, is certainly a direct extension of R.L. Burnside’s “Poor Black Mattie.” Guest Chris Stephenson on organ gets as dirty on the song as Ivory gets sassy. Derivative, but arresting nonetheless.

“Folk Tradition,” a short narrative by noted blues musician and preservationist Andrew Cohen in which he explains the concept of tradition, opens the “side” that honors the roots of the blues. “Catfish Blues,” an archetypical number, yet one of only 16 by author Robert Petway, receives an especially notable treatment. Featuring soon-to-be blues piano star Ben Levin, the up-and-coming, multifaceted Damion “Yella P” Pearson on harp, and should-be-blues-legend Jimmy “Duck Holmes” on guitar and duet vocals, the performance defines blues tradition, hitting the nail of it squarely on the head. Incidentally, both Petway and Holmes hail from Yazoo City, Mississippi, Holmes 42 years Petway’s junior.

Ivory herself is at her heavenly best on “Corrina,” a blues standard credited to Clyde Maxwell and famously recorded by Alan Lomax at Maxwell’s farm in 1978. She recites the song appropriately, with just Levin, and light guitar accompaniment by David Evans. With that one song, she demonstrates a unique command of conveying the real blues with class. But taken together, each half of New Southern Vintage totals an entire album full of inspiring Candice Ivory presentations.

Tom Clarke for MAS

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