Rory Block: nary a false note amidst the captivating recasting of mostly familiar chestnuts.
By David McGee
AIN’T NOBODY WORRIED: CELEBRATING GREAT WOMEN OF SONG
Rory Block
Stony Plain Records
No stranger to concept albums, Rory Block’s catalogue includes a septet of long players devoted to male blues masters of yore she befriended and studied with. Throughout her career the songs of pioneering female blues artists have made it onto her records, leading most recently to two volumes devoted to Power Women of the Blues featuring music associated with both the giants and the overlooked titans of female blues (2018’s Woman’s Soul: A Tribute to Bessie Smith and 2020’s Prove It On Me featuring songs associated with Ma Rainey, Memphis Minnie and Helen Humes, among others). Ain’t Nobody Worried makes it a triptych, with a slight difference: its timeframe has advanced to songs associated with female blues, soul, gospel and R&B artists from the ’60s through the ’80s–a time Ms. Block refers to in press materials as “historic, early American music.” As usual, regardless of the source of her repertoire, there’s nary a false note to be found amidst the captivating recasting of these mostly familiar chestnuts.
‘I’ll Take You There,’ Rory Block, from Ain’t Nobody Worried: Celebrating Great Women of Song
‘Midnight Train to Georgia,’ Rory Block, from Ain’t Nobody Worried: Celebrating Great Women of Song
The defining foundation for Block’s interpretations is gospel—the Staple Singers’ “I’ll Take You There,” with Rory delivering a powerhouse, guttural Mavis-style vocal, is naturally the deepest of these, but listeners might be surprised to hear her voice multitracked into a gospel chorus on “Dancing in the Streets,” thereby fashioning a whole new perspective on that classic; the same tack applies to the new coat of paint given “You’ve Got a Friend” when cast against a probing, testifying vocal and her spare acoustic guitar accompaniment. “Midnight Train to Georgia,” again featuring the multitracked Block chorus, is both faithful to Gladys Knight’s soul-gospel reading even as the texture of the Block vocal takes it deeper into the church over a soundscape fleshed out by her tender guitar and understated percussion. On a record as dependent upon vocal performance as this, the artist demonstrates, cut by cut, reasons to believe she’s in a league with all the great women who made the hit versions classics.
She makes “My Guy” her own with a coquettish, playful vocal set to gentle guitar support with a country flavor, steady, thumping percussion and her own flirty background vocals. “Love Has No Pride,” in a version based on the Bonnie Raitt recording, is a heartbreaking blues reading so potent in the depth of its feeling as to make her solid guitar accompaniment almost an afterthought—until she takes you aback with a poignant slide solo near the song’s conclusion.
‘Lovin’ Whiskey,’ Rory Block, from Ain’t Nobody Worried: Celebrating Great Women of Song
That she belongs in this company is proven most emphatically on her own “Lovin’ Whiskey,” a wrenching ballad about “tryin’ to love a man who’s lovin’ whiskey” and forging a new path out of the wreckage and a broken heart. It is, as Ms. Block writes in her liner notes, “the song I thought no one would care about…the song that got me on an airplane…the song that launched my career…the song I didn’t want to put on the record…the song that earned me a gold record and has remained my most popular and requested for over three decades…more people say it has helped them through the hardest times of their lives than any other I have written.” Small wonder, then, that the emotion she invests in this performance burns with heart rending intensity, overshadowing the uniformly powerful readings she delivers otherwise. She even duplicates, note for note, the original recording’s searing guitar solo as fashioned then by Bud Rizzo.
‘Fast Car,’ Rory Block, from Ain’t Nobody Worried: Celebrating Great Women of Song
‘Freight Train,’ Rory Block, from Ain’t Nobody Worried: Celebrating Great Women of Song
Hewing strongly to the original arrangement and sonics of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” Block adds a smidgen more attitude and blues flavor in capturing the alternating hopes and fears Chapman articulated in her unfolding dream to “be someone, be someone,” adding a drum track for extra dramatics. Deep blues comes in the form of fervent takes on Etta James’s “I’d Rather Go Blind” and Koko Taylor’s “Cried Like a Baby,” both of which vie with “Lovin’ Whiskey” as the disc’s most impassioned, knowing performances. All of which sets up the album’s gentle benediction in the form of a spiritually resonant, tenderly rendered vocal-and-guitar treatment of Elizabeth Cotton’s “Freight Train.” “Freight train, freight train, going so fast,” she sings, and it seems she’s speaking directly to us at a time when everyday life seems to be “going so fast”; her approach adds moving subtext to the lyric “please don’t tell which train I’m on/so they won’t know the route I’m on.” Such a simple phrase, with so much to unpack. Elizabeth Cotton’s signature song has never sounded so timely; moreover, its presence at the end of Ain’t Nobody Worried insures it lingering in memory long after the music ends. Behold Rory Block at her best.
