Corrina Steel - Capitalist System
BLUES MAKES A GOOD WOMAN ROCK HARDER
In her time, Corrina Steel has ridden in rattletraps and limousines. She's seen through the cracks in the corrugated tin walls of Mississippi juke joints, drank pure corn liquor and played with blues singers, rock artists and honky-tonk belters. While her last album 'Blues is a Good Woman Gone Bad', waltzed it about with country-rock, ballads and blue notes, her latest album takes the blues bull by the horns.
Recorded live in four days in a shack deep in the woods of Spencer, New South Wales, with only Boxcar Adam Pringle on guitars and Angus Diggs on drums for company, Steel's third album showcases an artist who's not content to 'keep it country' for the sake of a few breadcrumbs of radio play. Instead, Steel has taken the road that occasionally disappears into the trees, and aimed her musical vehicle for the ditch.
The song 'Capitalist System' puts her size 7 stiletto heel into the ruination caused by greed, while her voice curls around you face like a snake, fanging guitars poised to strike.
After all, Steel is the woman who recorded 'Lord Help the Poor and Needy' years before Cat Power conceived a pale imitation of it, and Steel is the real deal. Whether she's on stage or knee deep at the bar, what you see is most definitely what you get.
These are the post-millennial blues, gutbucket voodoo howls from the edge of the 21st century, a much needed examination of the abyss that the entire world is currently staring into. Corrina Steel has blown off the shackles of tradition and is fucking with the recipe to boot.
Then, one warm Febuary evening Corrina and filmaker Rachael Lucas where having a few glasses of bubbles and playing dress-up at a friends fashion studio, when they decided it should be the night to make a music video. Within the hour Boxcar Adam Pringle had been dragged over... and well .... check it out above.
New single 'Capitalist System' available now on itunes
Album out mid 2009
What the critics said about the last album
It is no accident on her new and hugely important album Blues is a Good Woman Gone Bad that Steel sings a fine version of the cross-genre classic ( I Cant Stop Loving You ). Nor is it surprising that she reaches back into gospel and delta blues and sings a powerful version of Jessie Mae Hemphill’s Lord Help the Poor and Needy.
At the heart of Steel’s extraordinary talent - and she is arguably the most important left field country music talent to emerge in this country since Kasey Chambers recorded The Captain in 1998 - is her ability, while deeply influenced by the tasteful end of the country music spectrum, to reach beyond the narrow constraints of the genre.
Experience Steel and you will understand how rich, musically, emotionally and lyrically, her particular take on country and blues really can be.
- BRUCE ELDER, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
WHEN you get one of the country’s best singers in the studio with the leading statesman of Australian country - alternative division, not the mainstream stuff - sparks are sure to fly.
And they do on Corrina Steel’s superb second album Blues is a Good Woman Gone Bad where she again teams with the head of the Chambers clan, Bill.
Steel sings her heart out and co- produces with Chambers, who also delivers oh-so tasteful colours courtesy of his arsenal of guitars, pedal steel, mandolin and bouzouki.
The result is perhaps the finest stew of country, soul and gospel this side of Memphis you will hear this year, even against stiff competition from Nick Lowe’s At My Age, which has it’s heart in a similar place.
Bartender’s Fool is a heartbroken country waltz, not unlike something from the early Emmylou Harris albums.
The quality never wavers throughout, and the album goes out with a sizzling 10-minute original, Hard Times for the Working Man, with Steel’s voice shimmering over Hammond organ for the first part before Chambers earthy guitar introduces a funky R&B groove that Bonnie Raitt would be proud to call her own.
Fans of Lucinda, Emmylou and friends, don’t miss this.
- NOEL MENGEL, THE COURIER MAIL
" ... a lovely soft twang and that classic country hitch... Steel's sultry voice and songs make her a strong presence in Australian music"
-JEFF GLORFIELD, THE AGE
" Steel is confidently stepping into the territory of her heroes such as John Prine"
- BERNARD ZUEL, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
" A powerful voice that recalls the golden age of 70's swamp/gospel/country/soul
- MUSIC AUSTRALIA GUIDE
"... the most compelling real music I'd had on the stereo for some time ... reminiscent of early Linda Ronstadt ... the observations of a woman who walks her own line"
- DENISE TORENBEEK, COUNTRY UPDATE
" Steel has the credentials, the crooning effortlessly powerful vocals and the experience to make something like this really work. Steel's penchant for country mixes in with the aformentioned styles is reminiscent of such crossover artists as Gillian Welch. Blues is a Good Woman Gone Bad is solid enough that fans of many different genres will find their tastes satisfied with this release"
- ILI TULLOCH, RAVE MAGAZINE
TOP TEN AUSTRALIAN ALBUM 2007
1. Midnight Juggernauts : Dystopia
2. Jackson Jackson : The Fire is On the Bird
3. Perry Keyes : The Fire Is On The Bird
4. 78 Saab : The Bells Line
5. Darling Downs : From One To Another
6. Devestations : Yes, U
7. Tim Rogers : The Luxury of Hysteria
8. Muscles : Guns, Babes, Lemonade
9. Corrina Steel : Blues is A Good Woman Gone Bad
10.Ed Kuepper: Jean Lee and The Yellow Dog
P. Donovan - THE AGE
