Mahalia Love

Powerhouse singer Mahalia Barnes, one of the most impressive female vocalists to come out of Australia, and her band The Soul Mates have teamed up with American blues-rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa to release an album of Betty Davis covers called Ooh Yea! The Betty Davis Songbook. It explores tracks from Davis sexy, raw funk records of the early 70s. Betty Davis s unique story is still fairly unknown. She married Miles Davis in the late 60s, influencing him with psychedelic rock, and introducing him to Jimi Hendrix. Later, she released three genre-busting albums, 1973's self-titled debut, 1974's They Say I'm Different and 1975's Nasty Gal that have since influenced artists like Outkast, Prince, Erykah Badu, Rick James, The Roots, Ice Cube, Talib Kweli and Ludacris. Mahalia Barnes, eldest daughter of Australian rock legend Jimmy Barnes and recent contestant on The Voice Australia, has been around music her whole life but has always been most heavily influenced by soul, blues and rock n roll.

Mahalia releases her brand-new, sophomore album titled IRL. The album will feature the singles ‘Terms and Conditions’, ‘Cheat’ and ‘In My Bag’ with album features including Stormzy, JoJo, Joyce Wrice and Kojey Radical. Aptly titled IRL, Mahalia is particularly incessant on doubling down on vulnerability, internal reflection, and a desire to feel, in the realms of love specifically as demonstrated on her last project. Standing as one of British R&B’s most successful contemporary faces, Mahalia continues to grow and establish herself in both her tact as an artist, but in building more robust ruminations sonically. As she evolves, her success becomes even more bonafide, both on home turf, but abroad too (she’s cracked the US Adult R&B Charts three times to date).

Love is connection. Love is gratitude. Love is passion. Love is audacity. These qualities define tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis’ second album with the glorious Red Lily Quintet: For Mahalia, With Love. Whereas Lewis used his transformative talents to illuminate renaissance man George Washington Carver in a whole new way on Jesup Wagon, the groundbreaking 2021 masterpiece that swept most major jazz polls, the saxophonist does the same for the pioneering gospel-music force of nature Mahalia Jackson. But this time it’s personal, because Lewis lived her music growing up in Buffalo, N.Y., playing there in churches as a youth and being nurtured by his grandmother, who had received Mahalia’s singing like a bolt from above.