BWW Reviews: Lauren Robert's Debut CD Dazzles With Original Blues, R&B and Gospel Songs

Music CD Review by Stephen Hanks

When Lauren Robert blew the roof off during her early August show at Iridium Jazz Club, her 12-song set of blues, R&B and gospel tunes included four original songs off her recently-released CD, Listen-I Mean It (www.cdbaby.com/artist/LaurenRobert). But if her live show was just offering a titillating CD tease, the disc itself is a soulful seduction-a 15-song package of power, passion, intimacy, vulnerability, and risk, all wrapped in lyrical expressiveness, melodic intensity, and some of the best blues/rock/gospel singing to come down the pike since Janis asked the Lord to buy her a Mercedes Benz.

Robert has seen a lot more life than Joplin did (although probably a lot fewer drugs) and that's why every song on her CD reeks with a been-there/done-that honesty about the desire for connection, the yearning for love, and how to cope when you're not getting any of it. But instead of being relentlessly morose regarding the vagaries and disappointments of life and love, this attractive blue-eyed blonde is unapologetically in-your-face without being intimidating. In the disc's opening track, "Look Out Love," a hard-driving, boogie-inducing blues rocker that could be a dance favorite at any club, Robert sings: "You gotta look out love, I'm gonna grab you by the balls this time." And somehow when she sings those words, you don't find yourself reaching for your crotch.

Given her performing experience and varied accomplishments as a singer, songwriter, and playwright, it's astonishing that this is Robert's first solo CD and that she hasn't garnered more national recognition, say along the lines of Eden Brent, Susan Tedeschi or Janiva Magness. She's a former Epic Records recording artist whose original songs have been produced by Stephen Bray, who has worked with Madonna. She has performed at clubs and festivals all over the country and in Paris, has performed with Doctor John and the late Donna Summer, and for 14 years she was the lead singer of the popular Louisiana Zydeco-funk band Mojo Hand, led by her ex-husband Slats Klug. And in 2004, her intense and compelling original musical .22 Caliber Mouth was presented at The O'Neill Musical Theater Conference, where Robert won the Georgia Bogardus-Holof Award for best lyrics in a musical.

But with all the success in that resume, there's got to be a lot of struggle, disappointment and angst, all of which are clearly exposed for all to hear in Robert's music and lyrics, which reflects a personality that is alternately introverted and extroverted, passive-aggressive (the "Listen-I Mean It" exhortation on the CD cover is a Post-It note that obscures her photo, which is also on the lyrics booklet), and hopelessly romantic despite the hard-edged and melancholy messages in the songs. Hence, she's a natural at blues and gospel.

While the melodies and arrangements are consistently solid (thanks to the musicianship, engineering and mixing of Dan Dolan), and Robert's vocals conjure up a mix of Tina Turner and Joplin (perhaps without the upper-register wail of a "Cry Baby"), it's her heartfelt, evocative, and self-revealing lyrics that are the revelation of the disc, especially on the down-tempo numbers. She goes into nightclub chanteuse mode on "Don't Kiss Me," a languid ballad (originally written for .22 Caliber Mouth), about resisting seduction because she's been burned too many times. "Don't kiss me/Here's where you shouldn't go/I can't risk the shame of this dangerous game/So my answer is no/Don't kiss me/Not till you show me your heart/It's been such a long time, since I dared mine/You'll break me apart."

On the solid R&B ballad "In the Moment," Robert asks, "Why, faced with endings do I begin?/My heart that was cold/Starts to hunger for contact and love/Oh, I know about losing, now I want to win/And the fight is right here . . . and it's now that I'm thinking of/ I can't hide anymore/Fate has opened the door and I'm going in/Yes, I'm in the moment, the moment is me." "Shipwrecks" (also from .22 Caliber Mouth and co-written with Klug) is a beautiful, haunting ballad about a couple clinging for life when their relationship is drowning. On the first few bars, Robert sounds a bit like a "Wind Beneath My Wings" vintage Bette Midler (although Robert's song is not nearly as gratingly schmaltzy) when she sings, "(Still) on we go/Through the cold/ Gasping while we try to keep a tender hold/And we both know, both of us see/We're in waters where we shouldn't be . . . Are you my chance, are you willing to risk/Going down in this ocean of strife/Cling to a moment of grace/That we find in the face/Of the terrible . . . terrible shipwrecks of life." If this song isn't eventually covered by a major artist (Bette?), I'll eat my iPhone. (Please click on Page 2 below to continue.)

During more than 30 years as a magazine and website publisher/editor/writer, Stephen Hanks has written about sports, health and nutrition, parenting, politics, the media, musical theater, and cabaret. In addition to writing about New York City cabaret for BroadwayWorld.com, Stephen also reviews cabaret shows for Cabaret Scenes Magazine and CabaretScenes.org. He is the Board President of Musical Mondays Theatre Lab, which workshops new musicals in New York City, and a former Board Member of the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs. In 2011, Stephen was an Associate Producer for the Off-Broadway show THE FARTISTE. Please contact Stephen with your comments and questions at: stephenhanks41@gmail.com

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