Thoughts on "I'm All Burn" review from Ralph Murre

I have friends who I respect and know will be honest with me if I ask them to write something about my new album. Poet and friend, a sailor, an architect and all around interesting guy, wrote the following:

Thoughts on "I'm All Burn"

It has been my privilege in the past several years to attend a number of Cathy Grier's gigs, both solo and with her small band of merry men, The Troublemakers, which is usually just an incredibly talented rhythm section backup. She's a maker of great "blues & grooves", as she puts it. It's a sound I've come to know and love, so I awaited her album, "I'm All Burn", with some trepidation, as I'd heard that it was to be a very produced album, which I feared might rob the music of some of its intensity and immediacy. I needn't have worried.

The blues are still blue. The grooves still, well, groovy. Backed by an assortment of some of the finest instrumentalists and vocalists anywhere, the exceptional writing, guitar work and singing of Grier have simply gained another dimension. Perhaps it's a little like comparing painting and sculpture depicting the same subject -- it's not as though either is missing something, it's just another way of looking. And in this case, the subject matter is well worth hearing in as many ways as possible. Blues with a relevant social message. Hmmm . . . who knew you could do that?

One of the last lines of the set says, "see your sister rise to glory", and while I know that Cathy Grier's ascendency began a long time ago, I'm so glad that I get to see this sister continue to rise to her well-deserved glory.

From dark and smoky to bright and brassy with touches of sassy and saucy along the way, this album simply makes me happy. And why else would I listen to music?

~ Ralph Murre