Do Right Woman - The Soul of New Orleans

These 12 tracks, recorded in 1993, were originally released that year in France as Born with the Blues, and issued by Virgin in the U.S. under the same title in 1996. This 2006 U.K. reissue on the Shout! label contains the same dozen songs, but retitles the album Do Right Woman, resequencing the tracks and adding historical liner notes. Marva Wright's albums might be filed more often under the blues section than any other, but in truth, she's a versatile singer of all forms of New Orleans R&B, venturing into gospel and soul as well. There's no faulting her vocal performances on Do Right Woman; their powerful gutsiness marks her as one of the best blues/R&B singers to have emerged in the final decades of the 20th century. It's the material that makes this an uneven record, though a worthwhile one on the whole. Some of the songs are quite good, "Born with the Blues" being a particular highlight for both its minor-keyed melody and vocals with a lived-in intensity that was a rare commodity indeed in '90s blues records. "Pray" is another peak, both for its moody gospel melody and stellar backup by Sonny Landreth on slithering slide guitar. Some of the other songs, however, are only average, so-so blues/R&B efforts, even if the manner in which Wright throws herself into them is never less than wholehearted. The covers of familiar R&B and soul tunes are also variable; it's real hard to do anything new with "Hound Dog," though "Can't Nobody Love You" (a '60s chart single for Solomon Burke) works well, in part because it strips down to just Wright's voice and Freddy Koella's slide guitar.