Kelly’s Lot in All Access Magazine March 2009

The Light by: Kelly's Lot

Promoting themselves as "Rockin' Roadhouse Blues," and rightly so, Kelly's Lot has delivered a disk that also confirms the group's solid status as straight-ahead rockers. Fronted by the energetic Kelly Zirbes, who also writes most of the songs, the band features not only guitarists Rob Zucca and Perry Robertson, plus bass and drums by Mark Drews and Sebastian Sheehan, but also an awesome wind player named Bill Johnston, who handles both sax and clarinet, and who wails just as well as any lead guitarist. (And make no mistake, Rob and Perry are great on this disk!) Kelly herself has one of those gritty voices that goes so well with the hard-luck expressions of the blues, right up there with Bonnie Raitt or Melissa Etheridge. So when she comes out from the gate with "Drive," the blues-based opening track, you feel the drive from her soul, and again, on the slowed-down electric blues of "Tired," she gets that down-home feel from the fields, with hot sauce on it. One note, though: Kelly couldn't keep herself from rhyming "girl" and "world" on three different songs, but hey, if it works for Robert Plant or Madonna, then let Kelly make it so as well! Let it be known: Kelly's Lot is a big supporter of Hepatitis-C awareness and research -- heck, they're doing another benefit this very Saturday, March 14, down at Java Joe’s in Yorba Linda. And because of the great spirit and good contained in work like that, it's really fitting that the Kelly's Lot CD closes with a song that's not too blue at all, "Say Yes To Life" -- positive vibrations from a bluesgirl with a big heart! Check her website: kellyslot.com.

Review by Rob Swick

http://www.allaccessmagazine.com/vol7/issue03/sound_bites.html....

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