Larger than life, former porn star and alt.blues diva, Candye Kane, may be the champion of a procession of colourful characters from the underbelly of contemporary America, but her musical predilections are surprisingly old school. And there are a number of surprises on this her 5th album, not least the fact that it's being sold on the back of ten guitarists, of whom only eight actually get a mention on the CD sticker!

Candye herself seems to have abandoned the piano altogether but happily her old band member and boogie woogie player extraordinaire Sue Palmer steps in and gels brilliantly with Candye's regular guitarist Heine Anderson on her best effort, 'Club of the Foolish Heart'.

'Steady Rollin' Bob Margolin makes an appearance as a guitarist, songwriter and producer and contributes liner notes of such enthusiasm and encouragement to the artist, that you are almost suckered in before hearing a note. 'Guitar'd and Feathered' is anything but a concept album but the various guitar players do lend themselves to a broad sweep of swing, boogie, soulful ballads, gospel, blues, and even rock and roll!

The strength of this album is that there is an inherent coherence in the choice of the thirteen songs that go back as far as mid 50's as in the case of Big Maybelle's 'My Country Man' and one of the album's best tracks, a cover of Guitar Slim's 'I Done Got Over It'.

Candye contributes to over half of the titles of which her duet 'I'm Not Gonna Cry Today' with guitarist Jeff Ross (uncredited on the sticker) and 'I'm Lucky' featuring Ana Popovic's surprisingly delicate guitar lines, work best. As to the other guitarist on call, Junior Watson and bass player Bill Stuve recall their halcyon days with the Might Flyers on 'My Country Man', while Bob Brozman finds a home for his National Steel on the country blues gospel outing 'Jesus And Mohammed'. This is a well thought out album that on occasions hits base, but isn't quite strong enough to break Candye out of her current niche market.

****

Review by Pete Feenstra