Delta Techno

Album Review

The album title Delta Techno signals that Memphis-based singer and pianist Sandy Carroll is singing the blues against slightly unusual instrumentation. Carroll calls herself a blueswoman, and so she is, in the sense that Bonnie Raitt and Maria Muldaur are blueswomen. She sings in a rich alto her mostly self-written (and mostly co-written) songs of love and lust, and while the arrangements are bluesy, they are also played by a mixture of acoustic, electric, and synthesized instruments. Blues purists are probably even stricter than jazz purists, and they may have some objection to the electronic bloops and bleeps lurking in the music here. But the real story is about Carroll's voice and songwriting, not her backup, and they are good enough to make this an effective collection for fans of rootsy, bluesy music who have a sense of adventure.