Blue News
Susie Blue & the Lonesome Fellas releases their
new album "Blue Train" this Fall/Winter 2021
Chicago’s Susie Blue & the Lonesome Fellas release a preview of their new album which is due out this Fall/Winter 2021 with the tune “Big Sweet Baby of Mine”. Originally recorded by Ruth Brown in 1957, the song becomes a sultry Chicago Roots and Rockabilly hit in the hands of Grammy winning Harmonica Maestro Howard Levy and Chicago Sax King Eric Schneider. Both are notorious veterans of the Chicago Blues and Jazz scene and have been working together for decades on Chicago stages, but this is the first time that they have ever recorded a song together in the studio.
“I was so excited to get both harmonica and sax in the same tune” Miles said, “these guys have played in Chicago together for years but they never went into the recording studio. I am so excited and honored to have them trading fours and blowing solos, they had a lot of fun together and the tune has been a favorite with everyone who has listened to previews of the new album.”
Speaking of the new album, “Blue Train” will be out in the Fall of 2021, and it’s not a Western Swing collection but an assemblage of 16 Retro 1950’s R&B and Rockabilly songs, highlighting the best of Chicago Blues, Roots and Jazz. The Wall St Journal describes Miles’ vocal style best - “Vocalist Solitaire Miles sings with warm highs and holds her lows neatly. There’s a jazziness about Miles’s phrasing, but she holds fast to a sound reminiscent of roadside bars where just three people are left near closing at the pinball machine.” – Wall Street Journal
Other distinctive selections featured are some long-lost 50’s A sides like “Palm of Your Hand” by Dolly Lyon, “Chills and Fever” by Tom Jones, “Oh How I Miss You Tonight” by Kay Starr, “One Way Ticket to the Blues” by Neil Sedaka, “How Could I Help But Love You” by Aaron Neville and an evocative and wistful duet with UK singer Dominic Halpin on “Forever Yours” which was penned by Carl Perkins.
“I wanted to bring out some of the best music from the late 50’s and early 60’s,” Miles explains, “featuring tunes that blended Soul, Rhythm and Blues, Jazz and Rockabilly. I hope this collection will remind listeners of the early roots of Rock-n-Roll music when it was first congealed with Blues, Soul, Jazz and Roots. This is definitely a period-inspired piece and I hope that it reflects the best of that era, when so many things were happening in American music and in American history.”
The band is off to a good start with “Big Sweet Baby of Mine” which has a soulful and bluesy sound. Miles’ vocals have matured over her 25 yr career and her style is more permeable and mature, incorporating everything she has learned about Jazz, Swing, Blues and Retro Country into this audacious new collection. Howard Levy plays like a great Blues man, but his virtuosity of the harmonica is so mind blowing, bending notes and creating riffs that you’ll want to go back and listen over and over again because you’ve never heard anyone get so many notes and changes out of a harmonica ever before. He’s at his best gamboling with long time friend Eric Schneider who swings the tune, their solos and trades are worth the download alone. The new CD “Blue Train” will be out this Fall 2021 on Seraphic Records – Jean M Reid, Chicago Music Guide