Big Time Sarah & The BTS Express Blues In The Year One-D-One

Big Time Sarah

Big Time Sarah has something in common with the Sears Tower in Chicago, and it has nothing to do with her physical attributes. Just as jaded long-time Chicagoans seldom look up in wonder at one of the world's tallest buildings, so the sheer frequency with which Big Time Sarah can be heard in Chicago's leading blues clubs has led to her world-class talent being occasionally overlooked. A fixture on the Chicago blues landscape for almost three decades, her staying power has made her enough of an institution that locals might be forgiven for taking her for granted. Sarah has been featured in the north side blues clubs almost as long as there have been north side blues clubs; maybe the fact that she has also worked as occasional bartender (and de facto bouncer) at the club B.L.U.E.S. on North Halsted has something to do with that short-sightedness.

But when she joins the band on stage - often that of her mentor, Chicago blues patriarch Sunnyland Slim - belting out a husky-voiced verse or two from behind the bar, we are reminded once again that Big Time Sarah is a force to be reckoned with and won't be ignored. Outside her home town her formidable presence seldom goes unnoticed; a Big Time Sarah show in another town is like building a skyscraper in a cornfield - a big deal that makes people take notice. And they have: Sarah has built a solid worldwide reputation with regular tours in the U.S. and abroad since the late 1970s. 'Blues In The Year One-D-One' picks up where her 1993 Delmark debut 'Lay It On 'Em, Girls' (659) left off - another taste of what you'd hear leaning against the bar during one of Sarah's performances with her tight regular band on home turf.

Most of the music was recorded live in the studio, much of it on the first take, as Sarah and her BTS Express run seamlessly through a set of mostly up-tempo, funky, contemporary blues. Though more than capable of wringing the last drops of soul out of a slow burner (hear her tribute to Sunnyland Slim 'Long Tall Daddy', plus 'Little Red Rooster' and 'Steal Away'), most of Big Time Sarah's music is really about having a big time. Decades of stage experience before demanding audiences have taught her that pleasing the crowd is the top priority, a lesson she acts on with gusto. Her aim has never been to make grand statements or reinvent the blues, but simply: let's get together and have some fun. It's a task she rises to with enthusiasm and good humor.

There is, however, a subtext - usually cloaked in her wry humor - that frequently surfaces in Sarah's music and has won her the allegiance of much of her audience: what might be called her practical feminism. Less concerned with overt activism than with the day-to-day business between the sexes, Sarah speaks her mind from a feminine point of view that hits a nerve. Often her commentary appears as asides within a song you've heard a dozen times, and just as often she makes you hear the whole song anew. Her gender-reversed take on Clifford Gibson's 'Don't Want No Woman', turned into 'I Don't Want No Man', hits the mark as squarely as Magic Sam's version, and in tackling 'Hound Dog' she reclaims the feminine perspective of Big Mama Thornton's original. You don't have to listen with feminine ears to get it - any pair of ears will do, though it helps to have a foot to tap. - Scott Dirks

Copyright © Bear Family Records