Review: Grace Bowers ‘Wine On Venus’

Review: Grace Bowers ‘Wine On Venus’

By Hal Horowitz

There are impressive debuts from young blues-based artists… and then there is this.

Grace Bowers is just 18 but has unleashed her initial album, Wine on Venus and it’s more than just a striking introduction.

These tracks split the difference between funk, soul, blues, and rock showing that even at this age, her talent is already mature. In songwriting (she co-pens everything), and especially guitar playing, Bowers’ leading venture, along with her expansive Hodge Podge band, feels more confident, poised and sassy than artists twice her age.

The Nashville by way of the Bay Area artist has already been nominated for Instrumentalist of the Year at this year’s Americana Music Association Honors & Awards, made her Grand Ole Opry debut, is playing large festivals and is on tour supporting Slash, The Red Clay Strays and The Osborne Brothers (John Osborne produced this set). She also blew away the audience with a 20 minute performance at last year’s Newport Folk Festival. That’s all before this set of nine knockouts even appeared. It should establish Bowers as one of the finest new artists of the year.

She is not a singer though, unusual for someone fronting a band bearing her name alone. But that works in her favor. All vocals are handled by soulful vocalist Esther Okai-Tetteh. As much as Bowers, she is the reason these performances are so riveting. Her voice is assertive and throaty with the swagger of a pro and the ability to shift from gritty R&B to a more delicate moan, sometimes in the same song. Her vocal delivery, like Bowers’ guitar work, is forceful and tasty with a combination of gracefulness and fire. She shows restraint even when going for the musical throat.

Then there are the songs.

They alternate between the sweet Prince-styled R&B of “Lucy,” the rump-bumping Tower of Power-infused horn funk of “Holding On to Something” and the bottom-heavy 70s-styled “Tell Me Why You Do That” (just try not to sing along with the chorus). Add the expansive, Hendrix/Stevie Ray-imbued fire-breathing yin-yang balladry of the closing title track, arguably the disc’s most potent offering and, as YouTube videos display, a live show-stopper. The latter brings gospel flair as Okai-Tetteh powers through it like a youthful Janis Joplin reaching for the next level.

It takes mad confidence to open your first release with an instrumental mind-altering jam. But that’s what we get on “Won No Teg” which leads into its front-wise title of “Get On Now,” a boiling, bubbling slice of Latin-inflected percussive funk. The resulting nearly nine minutes builds intensity as Bowers lays down rhythmic wah-wah heavy lead lines that gradually increase in psychedelic shards while Okai-Tetteh delivers her soul-searing attack. Powerful.

Sly & the Family Stone is a clear influence. So much so that she covers his iconic “Dance to the Music” in a version hewing close enough to the original that it could be a Sly outtake. Still, since it’s over half a century old, this revival might introduce the classic funk-rocker to a new generation.

There’s an insistent, contagious energy to Bowers’ inaugural recording that’s visceral and impossible to ignore. Sure she’s young, but if this is what she’s capable of at this age, just imagine the incredible career she has ahead.

Jump on now.

“Tell Me Why You Do That”