Memphis… Yes I’m Ready (OKeh)
Dee Dee Bridgewater
Released September 15, 2017
AllMusic Favorite Jazz Albums 2017
2017 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll Top 10 Vocal Album
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About:
Every picture tells a story; every journey begins differently. The story of Dee Dee Bridgewater‘s stunning new album, Memphis…Yes, I’m Ready, begins in that city, where she was born at Collins Chapel Hospital, located not far from where the album was recorded at Producer Willie Mitchell’s historic Royal Studios. Dee Dee’s father, a trumpet player, also affectionately known as “Matt the Platter Cat”, was a DJ at WDIA, the top Memphis radio station. Even when the family moved to neighboring Flint, Michigan, as a young girl Dee Dee would listen to the great sounds of the Memphis music scene by tuning-in late night from across state lines. And oh what a music scene it was!
“Even as a young girl the music moved me, inspired me, made me dance with joy and cry with emotion. My life journey may have started in Mali, West Africa, as a descendent of the Peul tribe and the Fulani of Nigeria (explored on her 2007 recording, “Red Earth” recorded in Mali) but it certainly was nurtured by my childhood in the South and all of the amazing music that I was being exposed to.”
To honor Memphis and her roots, the 2017 NEA Jazz Master, three-time Grammy and Tony award winner, and UN Ambassador for the Food And Agriculture Organization knew that she would have to come back home to do it right. The album was co-produced by Memphis native and Grammy-winning musician Kirk Whalum, Willie Mitchell’s son, Grammy-winning Engineer Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell, and Bridgewater’s daughter/manager, Tulani Bridgewater. Memphis…Yes, I’m Ready was recorded at Royal Studios in Fall 2016 after multiple visits by Bridgewater to Memphis over a period of several years, during which time she absorbed as much of the music, culture, heart and soul of the city as she could possibly consume.
“Working in Memphis at Royal Studios is like magic,” says Bridgewater. “There’s so much history that has been recorded in those walls. I just felt I could take this journey in that city with Kirk and Boo. They are my two kingpins and the two helped me realize this project and bring it to fruition.”
Dee Dee was determined to recapture the same magic and history of the Blues, R&B and Soul classics in the recordings that were originally made in or associated with Memphis. “I wanted people to be able to recall the original versions, but I also wanted them to have a more modern feeling while respecting those originals. I’m doing B.B. King’s ‘Thrill Is Gone,’ Bobby Blue Bland’s ‘Going Down Slow’, Otis Redding’s ‘Try A Little Tenderness,’ Al Green’s ‘Can’t Get Next To You,’ Ann Peebles’ ‘I Can’t Stand The Rain’ and The Staple Singers’ ‘Why? (Am I Treated So Bad)’ – it just doesn’t get any better than this in terms of material. The opportunity to make them my own was an opportunity and a challenge I felt honored to take on.”
In reality, Bridgewater even prayed her project was on the right path. She said her prayers were answered when, out of the blue, Memphis’ own Stax Records singing legend Carla Thomas dropped by Royal Studios just after Dee Dee had finished mixing Thomas’ hit, ‘B.A.B.Y.’
“Being able to play ‘B.A.B.Y.’ for Carla and listening to her share stories about my father playing with her father, Rufus Thomas, and talking about life in Memphis in general was the final affirmation that I needed for the project…the icing on the cake.”
The result of this recording is an album that sounds like Memphis and feels like Memphis but also, sounds and feels as only a Dee Dee Bridgewater album can, imbibed with her own fierce passion, originality and incredibly dynamic take on the tracks. “I want to honor Memphis, which we call Soulsville, because it has brought joy to so many people around the world,” says Bridgewater. “It has always been a part of me. The more I come back, the more at home I feel. I will eventually move back here. Much of my heart and soul are here.”
Track Listing:
1. Yes, I’m Ready (Barbara Mason) 04:57
2. Giving Up (Van McCoy) 04:55
3. I Can’t Get Next to You (Barrett Strong / Norman Whitfield) 05:16
4. Going Down Slow (St. Louis Jimmy Oden) 04:45
5. Why (Am I Treated So Bad) (Roebuck “Pops” Staples) 04:36
6. B.A.B.Y. (Isaac Hayes / David Porter) 04:04
7. The Thrill Is Gone (Rick Ravon Darnell / Roy Hawkins) 05:38
8. The Sweeter He Is (Isaac Hayes / David Porter) 06:45
9. I Can’t Stand the Rain (Donald Maurice Bryant / Bernard Miller / Ann Peebles) 03:06
10. Don’t Be Cruel (Otis Blackwell / Elvis Presley) 04:40
11. Hound Dog (Jerry Leiber / Mike Stoller) 03:38
12. Try a Little Tenderness (James Campbell / Reginald Connelly / Harry Woods) 05:25
13. (Take My Hand) Precious Lord (Rev. Thomas A. Dorsey / Sobie Frank Frazier / Jeff Majors) 04:18
Personnel:
Dee Dee Bridgewater: vocals
Kirk Whalum: tenor and baritone saxophone
Lannie McMillan, Kirk Smothers: tenor saxophone
Marc Franklin: trumpet
Kameron Whalum: trombone
John Stoddart: keyboards, vocal arrangements
Charles Hodges: Hammond organ
Garry Goin: guitar
Jackie Clark: bass
James Sexton: drums
Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell: cymbals, electric bongos, tambourine
Sharisse Norman, Candise Rayborn-Marshall, Kevin Whalum: background vocals
Stax Music Academy: background vocals
Recorded September 5–11, 2016, at Royal Studios, Memphis, TN, by Ted Jensen
Producers: Dee Dee Bridgewater, Kirk Whalum, Tulani Bridgewater Kowalski, Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell
Associate Producer: John Stoddart
Art Direction: Tulani Bridgewater Kowalski
Design: Thomas Brodin
Photography: Rachel Ashley
Review:
There’s no question that Dee Dee Bridgewater is one of America’s great jazz vocalists, but that’s hardly the only thing she can do. Bridgewater was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and while her family pulled up stakes for Flint, Michigan when she was only three, she still feels a spiritual connection with the city and its music, and on 2017’s Memphis…Yes, I’m Ready, she puts her love of vintage soul and blues front and center. Bridgewater recorded Memphis…Yes, I’m Ready at Royal Recorders, the Bluff City studio where producer Willie Mitchell cut a string of hits with Al Green in the ’70s, and Willie’s son Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell co-produced the sessions along with Dee Dee and her daughter Tulani Bridgewater. Mitchell pulled together a splendid studio band for this album, including a few members of the old Hi Rhythm Section, and they deliver a superb set of soulful grooves, at once swampy and emphatic, with John Stoddart’s electric piano, Jackie Clark’s bass, and James “Bishop” Sexton’s drums generating just the right amount of funk. With a top-shelf soul band cooking behind her, Dee Dee Bridgewater steps up as a top-shelf soul singer, smooth when she should be, good and gritty when she wants to be, and sounding tough, passionate, and firmly in command at all times. That Bridgewater delivers on soul classics such as “Yes, I’m Ready,” “Try a Little Tenderness,” and “B.A.B.Y.” is not a great surprise, but her transformation of B.B. King’s blues perennial “The Thrill Is Gone” into a smoky late-night groove is both unexpected and welcome, and she works an impressive transformation on two numbers associated with Elvis Presley, “Don’t Be Cruel” and “Hound Dog,” finding a tough R&B center inside them. “The Sweeter He Is” gives Dee Dee a chance to open up her soul and tell us some home truths about cheating men, and the closing performance of the gospel standard “(Take My Hand) Precious Lord” is glorious. Dee Dee Bridgewater strips off some of the polish from her style on Memphis…Yes, I’m Ready without betraying her talent or best musical instincts, and this detour into Soul City is a treat that should please her fans, as well as anyone who digs Southern soul.
Mark Deming (AllMusic)
