Ytc Price

Billy Price and Otis Clay: Two singers separated by a generation come together in a performance that moves the Southern soul tradition a little bit further up the road. Pittsburgh rhythm and blues singer Billy Price and deep Southern soul/gospel icon Otis Clay worked with masterful guitarist/producer Duke Robillard to create their first full-album collaboration, This Time For Real On This Time for Real, the singers have selected an array of soul and R&B songs from the catalogues of artists including Joe Tex, Sam & Dave, the Spinners, Los Lobos, Syl Johnson, and Bobby Womack as well as new versions of two songs originally recorded by Clay. The two friends have performed and worked together occasionally since 1982, but this is by far their most extensive collaboration to date.

Margo Price begins Strays by declaring that she's been to the mountain and back, a proclamation she pairs with a stylized, amorous throb that's equal parts new wave and classic rock. That statement and that sound make it clear that Strays finds Price continuing to wander far afield from the traditional country of her 2016 debut Midwest Farmer's Daughter, developing a distinctive synthesis of a variety of styles that can't quite be pegged as Americana. Sharp, incisive songwriting remains at the heart of her music, allowing Price to weave different sounds and rhythms into her probing, emotionally open songs.

In a world starved of roars of applause, hollers from excitable concertgoers and the warm, worn acoustics of venerated music venues, Margo Price has shared a relic of times gone by with her new live album, Perfectly Imperfect at The Ryman.

The transcontinental soul/blues duo of Pittsburgh's Billy Price and France's Fred Chapellier took their show on the road (in Europe) to support the release of the duo's Night Work debut. The results are contained on this CD/DVD package, a logical and energetic follow-up to the studio recording that reprises some – but not all – of those tunes, adds logical covers, and generally ratchets up the sparks, as live albums typically do. The 11-song audio CD runs about half the time of the far more extensive two-hour DVD, but both nail the vibe of shows that featured tough, resilient backing musicians augmented by two horn players.