Shirley Johnson - Killer Diller - (2006) Delmark - Soul/Blues (FLAC)

Until i went to a soul night years back in the new millenium the Jock that night played 3 tracks from what was then a new release and i just flipped out and ordered the CD released on Delmark outta Chicago. A superb blend of Soul & Blues that knocked me away,with 3 great dancers,the featured taster and 2 more NOT on you tube!...I knew her from her 45,s on LaShawn,Diamond Gem,&Big Boy...Shirley is an outstanding singer who finds herself in the vanguard of a remarkable revival of Chicago female soul/blues singers, a movement that is finding enthusiastic audiences in Chicago and around the world. For many years she has been an able ambassador, here and abroad, representing both the gospel and blues traditions, and after a smattering of recordings the aptly named Killer Diller is finally her first full domestic release. The scarcity of female blues singers on the Chicago scene throughout the 1960s, '70s and '80s seemed a warning signal to some observers of the imminent demise of that great tradition and a symptom of the general decline of blues. Gospel churches continued to be a fertile training ground for singers like Shirley Johnson, but it seemed few women publicly sang blues. Through the lean years musicians such as Sunnyland Slim, Erwin Helfer and Willie Kent have provided work and needed exposure to blues singers, and clubs like the Piano Man, B.L.U.E.S. and Blue Chicago helped  nurture a market for female blues singers, so that today this tradition is thriving in Chicago. Shirley Johnson was born June 7, 1949 and raised in Norfolk, Virginia where her religious family encouraged her to take up singing gospel at the age of six. They were church going people who loved music, but who frowned on blues. "But, you know," says Shirley, "I always loved the blues as a little girl. We wasn't allowed to listen to them. But every chance I got, I did." She made it a point to tune in Norfolk radio station WRAP, which broadcast an hour of blues every day, and it was through these shows that she first heard B.B. King, Etta James, Bobby Blue Bland and Ruth Brown, and later Koko Taylor and Z.Z. Hill. When she was old enough to go out on her own, she branched out into soul music, opening for Aretha Franklin, Z.Z. Hill, Jerry Butler and others at theaters around Norfolk like The Dome as well as at the navy base there. After making early forays into the pop and soul markets, recording 45s on two small regional labels, she came to Chicago in 1983 to sing blues. Shirley said..."April 15, i came here with $40 in my pocket. I knew a guy who came here [Chicago), and he said, 'The kind of voice you got, you're a blues singer, you're not a pop singer.' He said, "You should come to Chicago.' So that's what I did. He sent me a plane ticket because he was gonna record me. And then when I got here, he didn't have any money to do it with. So I been here ever since." The enterprising young singer worked with Buster Benton for a few years in south suburban Robbins. Following that she sang for a couple of years with Little Johnny Christian at the Checkerboard Lounge and later worked with Artie "Blues Boy" White before teaming up with keyboard player "Professor" Eddie Lusk who took her on the road. In the mid-'90s she went on her own and established a long term base at Blue Chicago where owner Gino Battaglia has actively encouraged and promoted female blues vocalists. Shirley has matured into a singer with fine control and a passionate, husky voice that can deliver the lyrics of a chugging, up-tempo Chicago blues shuffle with uncommon heft and conviction, and infuse a familiar slow ballad with the smokey, reassuring power of her own personal experience. She's not a shouter or a singer who will drag a song over the top. And she isn't going to go berserk in your face. Shirley Johnson is an entirely modern soul/blues singer with ample talent, heart and class. Home for a brief holiday visit between tours of Russia and Spain (two of nineteen foreign countries in which she has appeared), Shirley recently took a moment to reflect on Killer Diller. "I'm very excited about it," she said. “And to have done it with a company like Delmark. I'm just thankful for all the good things that's happening all of a sudden." I'm sure you'll find Killer Diller sufficiently killer, too,its all that and then some!...Superb Soul & Blues!

AMM 

                                                                       The Tasters!