Guitarist, pianist, songwriter, and powerhouse singer
Reneé Austin calls her mix of rocking R&B, blues, and country "roadhouse soul," and it's an apt description of the energy and passion she brings to the table. She's been marketed as a blues singer, which is unfortunate, in a way, since her driving live show brings her closer to someone like
Tina Turner, adept at bringing a gospel intensity to material that is really more hard-rocking country-soul than it is blues. On
Right About Love, her third release,
Austin continues to deliver the electricity that made her previous albums so striking, and it should be noted that she wrote most of the material here, including the fine opening track, "Mouth of the Delta," and the soul-searching title tune, "Right About Love." She covers
Bobbie Gentry's "Bugs," as well, and it's a telling choice, since
Gentry ended up similarly trapped between genres, part country and part pop, when in retrospect, she was really doing a kind of intelligent and gothic version of Southern soul.
Austin isn't quite in
Gentry's league as a writer yet, but if she continues to graft
Bobbie Gentry-like detail to that powerful, hoarse
Tina Turner-like voice, as she does here with "Mouth of the Delta," her energetic mix of country, soul, and blues should find -- if the world is at all fair and balanced -- an audience similar to the one that an artist like
Bonnie Raitt enjoys. ~ Steve Leggett