Marcia Ball Live- Down the Road

Product Description In over 30 years as a solo artist, Marcia Ball has built a huge, dedicated following with a series of critically acclaimed and increasing successful releases. Marcia's love of playing her soul-satisfying blend of raucous roadhouse boogie, New Orleans R&B, and intimate ballads in front of an ace static audience. DOWN THE ROAD is a marvelously boisterous Marcia Ball performance from 2004, backed by her road-tested touring band. The disc features a fans dream set list of Marcia originals from throughout her career as well her defining versions of classics like RED BEANS and LOUISIANA 1927. Review A class act whose soulful, horn-laden swamp pop and murderous honky-tonk make her a stellar example of musical artistry -- The Austin Chronicle Her originals sound like timeless classics and southern soul masterpieces that no one else can imitate -- Living Blues Marcia has an uncanny ability to synthesize all the sounds of the Texas-Louisiana border and deliver them with an honesty -- Blues Revue About the Artist After recording nine previous albums, Ball joined the Alligator Records family in 2001 (and also hooked up with the influential Rosebud booking agency that same year) and released the critically acclaimed PRESUMED INNOCENT, which took home the 2002 W.C. Handy Blues Award for "Blues Album of the Year." Her follow-up, SO MANY RIVERS, was nominated for a Grammy® Award, and won the 2004 W.C. Handy Blues Award for "Contemporary Blues Album of the Year" as well as the coveted "Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year" award. Born in Orange, Texas, in 1949 to a family whose female members all played piano, Ball grew up in the small town of Vinton, Louisiana, right across the border from Texas. She began taking piano lessons at age five, playing old Tin Pan Alley tunes from her grandmother?s collection. From her aunt, Marcia heard more modern and popular music. But it wasn?t until she was 13 that Marcia discovered the blues, as she sat amazed while Irma Thomas delivered the most soulful and spirited performance the young teenager had ever seen. According to Ball, "She just blew me away; she caught me totally unaware. Once I started my own band, the first stuff I was doing was Irma?s." In 1966, she attended Louisiana State University, where she played some of her very first gigs with a blues-based rock band called Gum. In 1970 Ball