Review: Ally Venable ‘Money & Power’

Review: Ally Venable ‘Money & Power’

By Hal Horowitz

There’s a theme to blues rock guitarist singer/songwriter Ally Venable’s sixth album and it’s there in the title. The appropriately named ‘Money & Power’ deals with those aspects of success, especially as it pertains to women’s influence in the world.

Venable is quoted in the promotional notes as saying “’Money & Power’ shouts to the masses that women are not to be doubted in their ability to thrive in the world.” As one of the current crop of young guitar slinging blues women along with Samantha Fish, Grace Bowers and Joanne Shaw Taylor, among others, Venable has a decade of experience navigating the trenches of the male-dominated field.

Push play on the roaring title track and hang on as Venable blasts out with a hard rock guitar lick every bit as biting and brutal as any swaggering male player. She verges on AC/DC terrain when singing “Imagine what a woman could do/ain’t gotta take it from you/don’t you doubt her/she got that money and power” before laying into a wah-wah laced solo as intoxicating as anything Clapton did in Cream.

There’s more where that came from with the slashing licks, throbbing power chords and grunge solo of “Heal Me” (“This music is my salvation…turn it up…”) as she sings with the intensity of a caged big cat at feeding time. On the opening “Brown Liquor,” where Venable brings in Christone “Kingfish” Ingram to assist with the tough blues rocker, she sings about a relationship where the titular alcohol replaces her rambling man.

There are plenty of less strident moments providing balance to this diverse dozen song set.

Venable shifts to soul/blues, adding a horn section, on “Maybe Someday,” for a retro blast that, with its chopped and sharp guitar lines, wouldn’t be out of place on an older J.Geils Band album. The sensitive “Keep Me in Mind” cozies up to Sheryl Crow territory as Venable speaks to a longtime friend “If you ever need me/wouldn’t matter where you were/I’d be there.” It’s a perfect distillation of pop and rock, rugged and grimy but tuneful enough to generate crossover airplay.

On the tensile “Unbreakable,” Venable invites fellow warrior Shemekia Copeland to duet on a commanding anthem. Both women charge through the lyrics speaking to the authority of performers from their gender with “She’s a soul survivor/head held high…she’s unbreakable and bold.” It’s the album’s most powerful and driving statement.

The mood breaks into a jumpy semi-reggae lilt for “Stopper Back Papa,” a jaunty ditty expanding her musical vista into funky town while still hanging onto organic roots with a punchy guitar solo. It infuses diversity yet sticks to Venable’s strong suit.

She’s just as comfortable with a ballad as the mood softens for “Stepping Stone” with male backing vocals, washes of organ and a naa-naa-naa break adding atmosphere with bonus potential for audience sing-alongs.

This tribute to strong women closes with Janet Jackson’s strutting “Black Cat,” the disc’s only non-Venable original (she co-pens everything else, about half the album with producer/drummer Tom Hambridge). The soul rocker brings the horns back to end ‘Money & Power’ with a potent flash of crackling blues authority from an artist whose time has arrived.

“Money & Power”