Roxanne Howe Murphy

Throughout her storied career, composer and music activist Mary Howe elevated the status of women composers and the Washington DC music scene and gained notoriety for her orchestral works. Many of her pieces for smaller ensembles, however, remain unpublished. On BETWEEN US, premiere recordings of Howe’s duos at last see the light of day and showcase her knack for drawing out the melodic qualities and dynamic timbres of the piano, voice, and stringed instruments. The pieces transcend time, simultaneously pulling from the sensibility and formal structures of romanticism and 20th-century idioms, spanning and bridging the gaps that typically pigeonhole music into a specific milieu.

The cover's cutout silhouette of these guitar-slinging soul/blues women is a succinct visual overview of the rather ambiguous contents within. Recorded in preparation for 2007's Blues Caravan tour featuring journeywomen singer/songwriters Sue Foley and Deborah Coleman along with the comparatively fresh-faced Roxanne Potvin (whose first widely distributed set was released earlier the same year), the disc seems more like a respectable concert souvenir than an actual collaborative affair. The 11 tracks break down into three solo cuts from each participant, one shared and joyous effort on the closing cover of a Chess oldie, "In the Basement," and a crackling instrumental dominated by Foley's always impressive guitar. There are many fine moments here, especially as Coleman lays into an easy funk groove on James Brown's "Talking Loud" and on Potvin's emotionally charged ballad "Strong Enough to Hold You".

Before joining Yes, Steve Howe had nearly a decade's worth of experience with other groups under his belt. This is a first-rate 25-track compilation of his '60s work, with six previously unreleased cuts, starting in 1964 with the raw R&B/beat band the Syndicats, moving to soul-mod with the In Crowd, psychedelia with Tomorrow (six of the better tracks from their sole LP are included), and progressive rock with Bodast…

Carlos Santana seemed to kick off an early-21st century music industry craze – by combining a crusty classic rock veteran with other star-studded talent (as evidenced by Santana's highly commercial yet mega-hit Supernatural). On first glance, it appears as that longtime Yes guitarist Steve Howe also followed this guideline to a degree with his 2003 solo release, Light Walls…

Beginnings (1975). "Beginnings" is the debut solo studio album of Yes' guitarist Steve Howe. The album was one of the five solo efforts released in the same period of time by all Yes' members during a hiatus of time by the band, after the release of their studio album "Relayer", in 1974. "Beginnings" also features some Yes’ members, Alan White and Patrick Moraz, and the ex-Yes' member Bill Bruford. There are also members of the progressive rock band Gryphon, Graeme Taylor, Malcolm Bennett and Dave Oberlé on one of the songs, besides other guest musicians.
"Beginnings" sounded overall most like a folkier version of Yes' sound with less emphasis on the keyboards. The material on the album is decent and varied. However, the problems here are the vocals of Howe himself. His voice fitted well into the vocal harmonies in Yes, but it reveals itself as very thin and helpless when it stands alone…

Steve Howe's second solo effort is his most essential recording. The Steve Howe Album contains many of Howe's strongest and most original compositions. Whereas some of his albums can be associated with the sound of the bands in which he's played, this release is unique…

The bilingual multi-instrumentalist (guitar/piano) and vocalist will likely be lumped with fellow Canadian blues women such as Sue Foley (who was instrumental in bringing her to Ruf's attention), but on the basis of this sophomore release, that's misleading. Rather, the Ottawa raised musician infuses blues into a variety of singer/songwriter styles. The Way It Feels, which was released in Canada almost a year before it came out in the States, revels in different musical set pieces that display Roxanne Potvin's sultry voice and eclectic stylings. The guest roster of Daniel Lanois, John Hiatt, Bruce Cockburn and Memphis Horns veteran Wayne Jackson indicates that Potvin is comfortable in styles besides the blues and R&B that characterize, but doesn't monopolize, this album. Terrific, even revelatory covers of Joe Tex's "I Want To (Do Everything for You)" and Freddie King's "Your Love Keeps Working on Me" find Potvin immersed in the soul aspects of the blues, and her own compositions that dominate this set occasionally follow suit. The lovely solo piano ballad "Don't Pay Attention" is clearly aimed at the Norah Jones crowd, as is the waltz time, French-sung "La Merveille".