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CD Review of "Retrospective 1991-2006"

Tracy Conover made a few waves over the past couple of years with her CD, Live At The Cactus Moon. A striking mix of rock, blues, and R&B, one came away from that experience hungry for more of her powerful guitar and soul-heavy vocals. Conover delivers more of the same on her latest release, Retrospective 1991-2006 (Guardian Wolf Music), a collection of sides the performer has recorded over the past fifteen years.

Conover started playing guitar in her mid-teens, but embraced the blues while studying Voice, Jazz, and Classical Guitar at North Texas State University in Denton, TX. She absorbed the music of artists like Freddie King (whose “Goin’ Down” was a highlight of her live CD), T-Bone Walker, Magic Sam, B.B. King, Albert King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Albert Collins. She moved to Austin in 1991, starting her own band and playing almost nightly. Later, she played with and toured with Earl King, Albert Collins, and opened for a diverse group of musicians, including Dick Dale, Buddy Guy, Charlie Daniels, the Marshall Tucker Band, and B. B. King.

Retrospective features Conover in a lot of different settings, featuring fifteen tracks with some stellar musicians pitching in. Among them are former Double Trouble rhythm section Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon, Mark “Kaz” Kazanoff, Barry “Frosty” Smith (former drummer for Sly & the Family Stone and Parliament), Larry Fulcher (bassist for Taj Mahal), James Polk (former James Brown piano man), Tommy Taylor (drummer for Eric Johnson), Riley Osborne, and Chris Duarte.

Not that Conover needs a lot of help. She is more than capable of holding your attention with her guitar pyrotechnics on tracks like the hectic opener, “Ironhorse,” or the slow burners, “Escape” and “Ladykiller,” or the rock & roller “Bye Bye Baby.” However, there are a handful of R&B-based tracks, like “Help Me Through The Day,” “There For Me,” “Tell Me,” and “Carelessly” where Conover’s vocal gifts are front and center. As skilled as she is on the guitar, her singing lifts her above the competition. She’s as comfortable tackling a bluesy number like “My Big Rocker” as she is a tender ballad like “I Wanna Be An Angel.”

At home singing and playing the blues, R&B, or rock, Tracy Conover shows with Retrospective 1991-2006 that she’s worthy of more attention. This CD can be found at CDBaby.com Graham Clarke ~ Blues Bytes, February 2007