GINA SICILIA
THE ALABAMA SESSIONS EP
VIZZTONE LABEL GROUP
SINKIN LOW–WASTED IT ALL ON YOU–I’M IN TROUBLE–NO USE AT ALL–MY LOVE
About a year ago, Gina Sicilia packed up her bags and she took off down the road. Of all the places a woman of her immense talents could have ended up, she chose the friendly confines of our very own Music City, USA. And, it really didn’t take her very long to realize that life does indeed move at a slower pace in this part of the country, and that composers and musicians all see things from a different perspective ’round here.
Those different looks at life and love are the underlying theme of her latest release. For this project, she went down even further south–to Muscle Shoals, AL, to the Nutt House Studios–for “The Alabama Sessions,” a five-song EP that chronicles a deeply-personal side of Gina never before seen. Her voice is that same powerful instrument that it has always been, but, her arrangements and instrumentation are more rock- or roots-rock-oriented this time around.
Starting off, she takes a page from another famous Alabama native who saw the light many years ago, as Gina finds herself “Sinkin’ Low,” and “I need to be redeemed.” A love affair that comes to a sad end has Gina asking for the return of her “hope and faith, for I Wasted It All On You.” She did not totally abandon her blues-lovin’ ways, as Fifties-style tremolo guitar and a rockabilly arrangement drives her “hoodoo-you-voodoo” vocal in “I’m In Trouble.” Perhaps the most poignant cut of the five is her somber look at life and love, for there’s “No Use At All to live half a life” with no feelings or love. The set closes with a tale of unrequited love, as Gina’s unrealized love for another, “My Love,” has her begging for “a place where they can’t tell us who to love.”
Gina Sicilia continues to mature as an artist and composer. We only wish “The Alabama Sessions” could have been a longer effort to continue to show this highly-personal side to Gina’s career. Until next time…Sheryl and Don Crow, TheNashville Blues Society.
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