© Bluestronomical Publishing Inc. 2009

Eden Brent
Mississippi Number One
YDR1616

Sometimes a CD is almost an audio book, telling the story of the artist involved. Mississippi Number One by Eden Brent is one such CD. And this is how the story goes….

A smoky bar late in the evening – not a place for youngsters, but a hang out for ‘grown’ people. The place is long past new, but has a comfortable, welcoming, familiar feel about it. A piano sits on the stage in the corner. An attractive woman accompanies herself while singing – is it blues? Jazz? It changes as the night goes on – from rollicking boogie-woogie to soft sentimental renditions of songs of love both found and lost. Some original, some covers, this southern chanteuse gives them all her vocal stamp. Her voice and her choice of songs warm you with that same comfortable, familiar feeling – as though you’ve rediscovered a lost treasure from your past.

This bar sits on the two-lane Highway 1, a scant distance from Greenville. Highway 1 follows the Mississippi River and then dead-ends into Highway 61. Brent grew up on Highway 1. Living in the country, she didn’t have many playmates available, so at the age of four the piano became a favorite toy. Her geographical location left an indelible mark on both her piano and vocal style. There’s also evidence of the grooves cut deep into the heart and soul of her style as a result of her friendship and musical partnership with the late blues pioneer Boogaloo Ames, who took a young Brent under his musical wing and crowned his protégé “Little Boogaloo.”

Boogaloo Ames has long since passed, leaving his Little Boogaloo to carry on the proud tradition of the blues, and with this new release, she does just that. A respectful interpreter of classics and a stylish songwriter in her own right, Eden wrote six of the songs on the CD, and covers three written by her talented mother, the late Carole Brent.

This release contains Brent’s beautiful versions of such classic as “The Man I Love” and “Why Don’t You Do Right” as well as the self-penned title track, “Mississippi Number One” an ode to that two-lane road that loomed so large in her childhood in the Delta. An outstanding pianist and an accomplished vocalist with a voice that can seem at once lilting and husky, she has crafted a beautiful audio snapshot of her life in the Deep South.

Eden Brent’s Mississippi Number One is not the end of this story. It is but a few chapters in the book of the life of an accomplished and classy musician – a book you can’t put down if you love Delta piano blues.

- Blue Lisa -


Southwest Blues CD Review - June 2009

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