★★★★★
The last thing on Marcia Ball's mind when her car broke down in Austin some 40 years ago was what she might be recording here in 2011. From her Louisiana roots to her Texas base, Ball marks a decade with venerable Chicago blues indie Alligator Records not by traveling new paths on Roadside Attractions, but rather by demonstrating her unfailing sense of what's right in new material that crackles with life...
- www.austinchronicle.com
2011-05-11
★★★★★
Few things in life are as reliable as a Marcia Ball performance. For more than four decades, the Louisiana-by-way-of-Texas musician has magnificently played piano and sang her way through the blues with incredible amounts of heart and soul. Ball is the real deal: equal parts New Orleans, boogie woogie, swamp music, and Texas soul all wrapped up into one package. Her new album shows that she's also an incredible songwriter...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-03-28
★★★★★
Artists love to cap off their recent studio successes with live albums; think of it as a public victory lap. For Marcia Ball, this is doubly important, since Her Tallness has spent many years as the type of performer whose dynamism always seemed slightly muted off of the stage...
- www.offbeat.com
2010-11-09
★★★★★
Is there anything more to a perfect, fulfilled life than Peace, Love, & BBQ? It's a rhetorical question, and Marcia Ball sings it like that, too. Her new record is another consistent entry to the oeuvre of Ms. Ball. Her voice is alternately celebratory on "Party Town" and "Watermelon Time" or plaintive while harmonizing with her backup singers or singing lead on "Where Do You Go." Her piano playing has its usual honky-tonk stomp and Longhair rhythms...
- www.offbeat.com
2010-11-02
★★★★★
On her first studio offering in four years, Marcia Ball launches off with the swaggering New Orleans accordion romp of "Party Town" and surging title track that raises barbecue to spiritual levels. The slight gruff of Ball's voice adds character where it lacks versatility and fervor, but her fingers are magic on the 88s and range through styles with ease, Ian McLagan's B-3 texturing her bluesy runs as do jolts from the L.A. Horns...
- www.austinchronicle.com
2009-07-21
★★★★★
Most of the new rash of soul folk, survivors and revivalists both, do little or nothing to redefine the values they hold dear, but this reformed country singer avoids any hint of neocon nostalgia. With her rolling bayou backbeat, her standards you never heard before, her habit of belting the man she's loyal to, and the moleskin burr that textures her every line, she has the makings of a downhome Bonnie Raitt. Just in time.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-17
★★★★★
No text for this review; see http://robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-cg90/grades-90s.php.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Track Listing: Big Shot; The Right Tool for the Job; Just Kiss Me; That's Enough of That Stuff; Louella;Everyday Will Be Like a Holiday; La Ti Da; It Hurts to Be in Love; Down the Road; NoOrdinary Woman; Crawfishin'; Louisiana 1927; Count the Days; Let Me Play With YourPoodle...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2009-06-05
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