Gloria Edwards: The Soul Queen of Texas - The Crazy Cajun Recordings (1999)

When this Houston-born soul and blues singer visited her grandmother, she would sneak down to the juke joint to watch her mother sing with pianist “Big Walter the Thunderbird.” Calvin Owens, a trumpeter and future B.B. King band leader, was another early influence and father figure of Gloria Edwards. She is often affectionately referred to as “the Soul Queen of Texas”, a title she secured on the strength of her powerful pipes and iconic presence on Houston's live music scene for more than 40 years. This compilation is a much-needed look at the deep deep deep soul talents of the very hip Texas singer. Gloria is great in just about any setting here, from southern funk, to sad ballad material, to some of the set's more straight soul numbers, and the package offers a whopping 21 tracks of Gloria's work for the Crazy Cajun label, more than enough to get you started dipping into her rich bag of talents. Titles include ‘Money (That’s What I Want)’, ‘Oh Me, Oh My (I’m a Fool for You, Baby)’, ‘Settled for Less’, 'My Love Keeps Getting Stronger', ‘Tell You About A Feeling’, ‘Lonely Girl’, ‘Don't Mess With My Man’, ‘I Don't Need Nobody (To Help Me Keep Up With My Man)', ‘Anything You Want’, ‘You Ain't Enough Woman to Take My Man’ and ‘Come on Over’. It also includes a nice shuffling arrangement of Etta James' ‘Pushover,’ and an alternate take of ‘Blues Part 2.’ http://www.daedalusbooks.com/, http://www.dustygroove.com/, http://souledonmusic.blogspot.com/