Album Review: Gráinne Duffy, Dirt Woman Blues

If you long for blues played and sung with the right combination of passion and finesse, you’ve come to the right place. This is Monaghan-woman Grainne Duffy’s fifth album, and it captures the singer-songwriter-guitarist in sparkling form, with work that intertwines her brand of Delta blues with standard guitar-driven rock.

Opener ‘Well Well Well’ is a prime slice of raw blues-rock topped by Duffy’s passionate vocals, and ‘Dirt Woman Blues’ is a slow, smouldering performance tricked out with sinewy guitar lines. ‘Running Back To You’ is a slow, insistent plea to a lover for understanding, allowing Duffy to exercise her impressive vocal dexterity.

‘Hold On To You’ swells with a stateliness, courtesy of some nuanced organ-playing from Elijah Ford, and the loping rhythm of ‘What’s It Gonna Be’ takes the music to a different place. Most intriguing is the adventurous ‘Rise Above’, described as a Celtic tone poem, but with Middle Eastern/Indian tonalities that show how effortlessly Duffy can expand the blues genre. 

Add Duffy’s impassioned vocals and you have a delicious gumbo stew, full of raw blues nourishment with added vitamins.

Listen: ‘Rise Above’ 

Out now via Blue Heart Records.

Read more album reviews in the new issue of Hot Press, out now.