01. Telling Me What To Do
02. Miss Mae's Juke Joint
03. All My Life
04. Going Back To Mississippi
05. Broken Heart
06. I've Got Two Men
07. Don't You Remember?
08. What I Been Through
09. Tearful Blues
10. Things Done Changed
11. Another Part Of You
12. If You're Looking For Someone

Nora Jean Bruso (vocals);
Dave Specter, Jimmie Jacobs, Brian Lupo, Carl Weathersby (guitar);
Ron Graham (saxophone);
Rob Waters (Hammond b-3 organ, background vocals);
Harlan Terson (bass guitar);
Marty Binder (drums);
Mark Bruso (background vocals).

I recently reviewed a cd from Nora Jean Bruso, a Chicago based blues singer, who really impressed many at this year’s Pocono Blues Festival. That cd was comprised of interpretations of some well known and lesser known blues. Severn has just issued a new album by her, Going Back to Mississippi (Severn Records), which is comprised solely of originals, so she is presenting her own “musical vision of the blues, rather than interpreting the vision of others.”

She has a strong backing band that include Carl Weathersby or Dave Spector on lead guitar, Rob Waters on keyboards, Ron Graham on saxophone, Harlan Terson on bass and Marty Binder on drums. Bruso’s powerful vocals will suggest Koko Taylor to many (Koko is her idol). She does have a similar background, as she, like Taylor, moved to Chicago after having deep southern roots (Bruso grew up in Mississippi). Her roots are lyrically expressed in the title track, a shuffle where she talks about going back because that’s where her baby is as well as Miss Mae’s Juke Joint, that celebrates the juke her grandmother operated.

She gets down in the alley on a superb slow blues, All My Life, with some nice sax in the accompaniment, while sings in a more relaxed manner on Broken Heart, with its caribbean-flavored groove. She takes us to New Orleans on the rhumba, I’ve Got Two Men, (one of whom has to go) with a nice solo break from Dave Spector. Don’t You Remember is a slow blues that evokes Someone Loan Me a Dime, with Bruso telling her baby how sweet their love used to be and how their relationship changed. Carl Weathersby is particularly impressive here in his instrumental responses to Bruso’s vocal and his solo.

With this new release she has gone beyond the promise shown on her earlier disc and has shown herself as among those who will carry on and follow Koko Taylor and keep “this great music alive and vital.” --- inabluemood.blogspot.com

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01. When You Leave Don’t Take Nothing
02. I’m Leaving You
03. Howlin’ For My Baby
04. If That’s What You Wanna’ Do
05. Doin’ The Shout
06. Members Only
07. Untrue Lover
08. I’d Rather Go Blind
09. Can’t Shake These Blues
10. Who’s Been Talking
11. It Makes Me So Mad
12. Spoonful
13. All Your Love
14. Big Boss Man
15. Killing Floor
16. He Belongs To Me

Vocalist Nora Jean Bruso has been an up-and-comer in the blues world, but go and see her perform live at a club or a festival, and you'll quickly discover she's a polished professional, a stone cold pro. Bruso, or Elnora Wallace, was born and raised in Greenwood, Mississippi, a town famous for producing a variety of blues and gospel greats. Her father was Bobby Lee Wallace, a blues singer and sharecropper; her mother was Ida Lee Wallace, a gospel singer.

In high scool, Nora Jean won the West Tallahatchie High School Talent Show grand prize for singing, and she began to perform in other area schools with small groups. Realizing her opportunities for recognition and recording were limited in Mississippi, Bruso moved to Chicago in 1976 and began her professional singing career with Scottie and the Oasis. Six years later, Scottie passed away and the band broke up, but Nora Jean began singing with other West Side bands she had already developed relationships with, including Little Johnnie Christian.

By 1985, she joined Jimmie Dawkins' band and recorded her first single, "Untrue Lover" for Dawkins' own record company, the Leric Label. (Some of Dawkins' Leric sides were reissued by Delmark Records.) She also sang on Can't Shake These Blues, an anthology released by Earwig Records. In 1991, she recorded with Dawkins on his album for the British JSP label, Feel the Blues, which was later re-released in 2003 with a bonus track from Bruso.

In 1992, she retired from the rigors of regional touring to concentrate on raising her two sons, but by 2001, she was called back into the studio by fellow Jimmie Dawkins band alumnus Billy Flynn. She provided four vocal tracks on Blues and Love, a 2002 release, and later that year, she resumed her blues career, such as it was, appearing on the main stage at the Chicago Blues Festival with Dawkins' band.

Later in 2002, she recorded her first album, Nora Jean Sings the Blues, and was awarded a "Keeping the Blues Alive" citation by the Black History Association in Chicago. In 2003, she released Sings the Blues on the Red Hurricane Records label and the album garnered critical praise from radio programmers around the U.S. and Canada. She performed again at the 2003 Chicago Blues Festival and headed to Europe that summer for a tour.

By 2004, Bruso was nominated for two W.C. Handy Awards, one for Best New Artist and one for Best Traditional Female Artist. Later that year, she signed a deal with Maryland-based Severn Records and released Going Back to Mississippi, which debuted at number five on the Living Blues magazine radio charts and climbed to number one on XM satellite radio. In June, 2004, she performed again on the main stage at the Chicago Blues Festival, with her own band, and in 2005 she made a slew of other festival performances around the U.S. and Canada, including the Cape May Jazz Festival and the Pocono Blues Festival.

During the 2000s, the Nora Jean Bruso band included Carl Weathersby on guitar, James Carter, drums, Bruce Belgin, bass and Brian Lupo, guitar. When they weren't on the road, Nora Jean was based in LaPorte, Indiana. --- Richard Skelly, Rovi

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