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Eden Brent’s piano playing and singing style ranges from a melancholic whisper to a full-blown juke joint holler.
She’s simultaneously confident and confiding, ably blending an earthy mix of jazz, blues, soul, and pop as she huskily invites listeners into her lazy, lush world.
That world lies just east of Greenville, Mississippi on the two-lane Highway 1, which follows the twists and turns of the Mississippi River before dead-ending into Highway 61 just south of Onward.
Brent actually grew up on Highway 1, where she was able to develop her gutsy vocal-and-piano chops via a 16-year apprenticeship with the late blues pioneer Boogaloo Ames, who ultimately dubbed his protégé “Little Boogaloo.”
Yet much more than the blues flows through Brent’s talented hands: Critics laud her “Bessie Smith meets Diana Krall meets Janis Joplin” attitude, compare her to jazz/pop dynamos Norah Jones and Sarah Vaughn, and wax effusively about her “whiskey-smoke” voice, which serves as a constant reminder that Greenville is located a few hundred miles due north of New Orleans.
With the release of Mississippi Number One, Brent is now ready to take her place as one of the fresh voices propelling this vital American music forward. As Chip Eagle, publisher of Blues Revue says, “in Eden’s huge playing and singing you can hear the ghosts of Mississippi in a duet with the future of the blues.”
