Susan Tedeschi - "Hope and Desire" (Verve)

Susan Tedeschi flaunts her vocal skills in her long awaited fourth album, Hope and Desire. Her voice simply soars in this twelve track collection of lesser known blues numbers by names like Ray Charles, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. Taking a break from her own songwriting and her guitar, Tedeschi focuses on vocal interpretation and puts her own personal mark on each of these songs.

This Grammy Award Nominee puts her choir training to good use in Hope, following the strong and indignant "Evidence", which is about a cheating partner, with "Sweet Forgiveness" a rich, soulful ballad backed by spectacular electric guitar and piano playing by Doyle Bramhall II and David Palmer. Recorded in only ten days, the record is spontaneous yet very well rounded. Producer Joe Henry, who has produced for Aimee Mann and Solomon Burke, allows this musical adventure to fly by bringing in a fresh group of handpicked musicians in for the project.

Although the songs in the album are from very different sources, as a whole, it blends very well together. The music and vocals meld together beautifully. Even though most of these songs are rather obscure, Tedeschi makes them familiar and understandable. And now that she has given a taste of what she can do with her voice, many of us are aching for her to bring out her own material and guitar again.

Written by Minjoo Kweon

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