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10/7/2005
Bob Gottlieb
This is a very pleasant stroll through the musical history of New Orleans, and at the same time puts together those divergent roots that make up both Blues and Jazz. Mary is working here with panoply of musicians whose roots and homes are in Louisiana, and are associated with New Orleans music. The artists' music crosses as broad a field here as can be imagined, artists such as Henry Butler, Jon Cleary, Dr. Michael Moore and Kirk Joseph. The styles of music they join together to make ranges from straight ahead blues to Dixieland to early swing jazz with Mary supplying her usual Piedmont fingerpicking style as well as some bluesy lap-slide guitar that almost takes the music over to an R & B feel at times. She combines and links together both tradition and innovation to point in new directions, breaking down old boundaries along the way with a glee that comes across on this disc. She is no new comer to this music but rather she has been doing it 30 plus years and along the way is the only woman to twice finish in the top three at the National Fingerpicking Guitar Championship. She has been honing her craft and is just now beginning to get some of the 'commercial recognition that she so deserves. Just deserts earned by her hard work.