After a gap of what seemed like years from mainstream Rock in 2016 Lee Aaron released ‘Fire and Gasoline’, a mere two years later she’s back with another rocker which contains some original music but is dominated by covers. ‘Diamond Baby Blues’ picks up really where ‘Fire and Gasoline’ left off and the title track that kicks off things here is a traditional hard rocker built on some nice stabbing guitars and brought together by ‘that voice’ which seems as good as it ever has,if not even better.
Just two tracks in ‘Mistreated’ is that Deep Purple cover and its a very clean version of the song and whilst Lee’s voice sounds great it is a little lacking in bluesy tones and the guitars lack a little dirt that might have lifted this from perfectly adequate to something rather more. As it is it feels like a bit of a lost opportunity.
After that the smooth chugging ode to all things vintage and American ‘American High’ takes us back even further and is really just good time bluesy rock and roll, its a nice original and as FM radio friendly as it comes. Hot on its heels comes the Koko Taylor cover ‘I’m a Woman’ which in itself is of course a take on Bo Diddly’s ‘I’m a Man’ and like the Purple cover is treated rather cleanly.
Two originals follow – the strutting ‘Miss Mercy’ and the measured, beautiful,powerful and heartfelt ‘The Best Thing’ which is my favourite original here by a long way and perfectly suits Lee’s voice. Whilst both songs fit nicely in the context of the album they are again a clean almost ‘nightclub/lounge’ version of Blues Rock, that whilst being beautifully executed seem to lack an edge. It’s a fine line I know but the polished production on this album is something I’m really not a fan of at all.
More covers follow first it’s Janet Jackson’s ‘Black Cat’ and then Australia’s own Stevie Wright gets the treatment on ‘Hard Road’: again both are in-keeping with the rest of the album, but if you will just take a second to listen to Wright’s original to see what Blues Rock can sound like when it’s stripped back and left a little rough around the edges and raw in the centre.
There’s one further original the good time blues rock of ‘In the Bedroom’ that sounds like Pink attempting a Robert Palmer outtake: it’s OK and has a tongue-in-cheek lyric that is nice. The album though is rounded out by three further covers. The first of which ‘Cut Way Back’ (never heard it before myself) sounds great, whilst the most famous ‘You’re No Good’ sits midway between the original Dee Dee Warwick version and the Dusty Springfield later release rather than the Van Halen take on proceedings, again it’s nice but just needs a little grit to be great.
The album is rounded out by the Willie Dixon penned ‘My Babe’ which again is nice, but not Little Walter. I guess sometimes you can love the songs whilst not really enjoying the polish that’s been applied.
