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| Cherry Lee Mewis Debut CD 'Little Girl Blue' Cherry Lee Mawis, 5 Foot nothing-22-year-old-white girl from North Wales, is the real deal. She's added her own fresh perspective to blues'n'roots music with her album Little Girl Blue, a mixture of 'forgotten', obscure blues tracks, adding a raw, unplugged feel teaming up with multi-faceted guitarist Max Milligan and producer and former Argent singer, John Verity. Both Max and John's wealth of experience work brilliantly with Cherry's fresh approach. Resulting in a mix of warm vintage, gut-bucket blues with rootsy sparse guitar style, covering songs by Memphis Minnie, Robert Johnson and Jeff Buckley, these 20's blues numbers have still been left in their original, impassioned state, at the same time leaving Cherry's fingerprints on them. Cherry served her apprenticeship endlessly gigging in the clubs and bars developing both her husky, gravelly voice and her performance and style too. Taking inspiration from Janis Joplin, Koko Taylor, and Mississippi Fred McDowell, on Little Girl Blue she sings with raw power and emotion, hurt and pain. Cherry says, “Many of the oldest blues records contain gritty, realistic lyrics, no censored versions! I put my whole self into every single one of these tracks. I feel like I'm made of them...” Like most great blues performers, Cherry is best experienced live! As well as performing all over the UK, she and her band are off to the Tropea Blues Festival in Italy this September to perform tracks from Little Girl Blue As the great hobo blues man himself, Seasick Steve says, “The only people who are going to keep the Blues alive and kicking are the kids picking it up, these young birds out there-they got all the future. “ Cherry feels she's doing her bit to keep Blues music well and truly alive. ”I got as much into the arrangement of a song as I do into the writing of one...”concludes Cherry. “This is music that I love. I hope my angle on it makes people that bit more interested.” Little Girl Blue shows Cherry at her tear-jerking torch/pure blues/jazz smoothie/soulful ripping best. write your comments about the article :: © 2007 Jazz News :: home page |