Debbie Davies
LOVE THE GAME
(SHANACHIE)

Emotional highs are the key to good blues, and local six-stringer/singer Debbie Davies hits them here — especially when she’s trading the kind of sharp-edged licks perfected by her mentor Albert Collins with producer/guitarist Duke Robillard on the instrumental duel " Fired Up " and on the simmering " Down in the Trenches, " which offers her most sad-eyed vocals and a solo built from little bends and chromatic touches that illuminate the heartache. This is her best album, with good songwriting, a breadth of blues and roots command, relaxed and natural singing, and hot-rod guitars. Guest Jay Geils punches up the rocker " Worst Kinda Man " with some slide and Bruce Katz paints shades of B-3 across the album. Robillard’s solo on " Grow Up, Grow Old " splits the difference between Texas blues and Bakersfield country. But it’s Davies who, at last, has hit her mark as an artist.

Issue Date: July 5 - 12, 2001