Blues is very much an American art-form, but blues performers arise just about everywhere. A half century ago, there was the British Blues scene, which was actually more rock oriented. When one talks about the blues, one does not often think of Canada, especially the western provinces like Alberta and Manitoba. In recent years, Canadian bluesman Colin James has been making a name for himself, and previously, the late Jeff Healy attracted a fair amount of attention. This week, we have a new recording by a first-rate blues and soul artist from Calgary, Alberta, Ollee Owens. Her album is called Nowhere to Hide. It combines rock, blues and soul with excellent original songs, in a setting that can be evocative of the Memphis soul sound of the 1960s and early 1970s.

Ollee Owens was born in the farming community of New Bothwell, Manitoba, and as a teen she was drawn toward artists like the Staple Singers, Bob Dylan, Etta James and the Delta blues sound. While performing, she came to want to be a songwriter, and started penning her own material. But life intervened and she took time from music to raise a family, with a daughter with a cognitive disability, who required extra care. She dropped out of the performing music regularly for some fifteen years, with occasional small appearances. It was at one of those, that producer Bill Dowey urged her to resume her musical career, and she has reached a point that she has been able to perform and record regularly since 2016. In 2022, she released an album called Cannot Be Unheard. And now she is out with Nowhere to Hide. Instead of being a homegrown Canadian recording, Ms,.Owens traveled to Nashville to record, to work with a sympathetic group of musicians who capture the soulful spirit of the music. The producer was Bobby Blazier, who also played drums throughout. All but two of the songs on the album are original compositions, with almost all of those having different co-writers with Owens. Despite the blues orientation, and with several songs being in a minor key, lyrically, the songs are mainly optimistic, showing the spirit of carrying on in the face of adversity. There are also a couple of straight-out love songs, though being the blues, there’s one more or less obligatory song about about one’s lover leaving. The covers include a tune by Bob Dylan and one by Los Lobos. The album was done in two separate sessions in different studios with mostly different personnel, but the album has a consistent, unified sound, strong on the groove, with arrangements that put Ms. Owen’s powerful vocals to best effect.

Opening is the title track Nowhere to Hide, which reflects the general lyrical theme of the album of overcoming what life throws at you. The tune is an energetic minor-key blues rocker that shows Ms. Owens’ powerful vocals. <<>>

In a similar lyrical mood is Solid Ground another statement of defiance against the bad things in the world. Ms. Owens and company add a little funk to the musical mix. <<>>

More toward the soulful side is another of the album’s highlights, Some Days which continues the album’s message of being strong and coping. <<>>

A straight out love song, with a strong blues-rock groove is the track called Love You Better. It’s done from the standpoint of a happily-married woman. <<>>

The opposite to that, lyrically, is Still in Pieces a more typical blues song about a breakup. The musical backing is first-rate. <<>>

It’s back to marital bliss on the song called My Man, which takes a great funky direction. <<>>

One of the two covers on the album is The Neighborhood by the members of Los Lobos. Stylistically it’s a great fit with the overall musical texture of the album. <<>>

The Bob Dylan song Lord Protect My Child closes the album, in a Gospel influenced style. The song could be thought of being autobiographical in light of Ms. Owen’s special-needs daughter. <<>>

Nowhere to Hide, the new album from Canadian blues-rocker Ollee Owens, is an impressive recording by a powerhouse singer, performing first-rate original material with a fine backup band of Nashville studio musicians. As low-down as her music can sometimes sound, there is almost always an underlying optimism or defiance of adversity. The arrangements run from slinky blues-rock to Memphis soul-influenced, a style that has seen a lot of performers reviving recently. Ms Owens, producer Bobby Blazier, and the band nail it, with classy performances.

Our grade for audio quality is an A Minus with a nicely proportioned mix and reasonably clean sound. But once again, as is so often the case the dynamics of the performances are undermined by volume compression, giving the recording a flat rather homogeneous sound.

The blues knows no boundaries, though who would have thought that such strong, soulful music could come from a performer from the Badlands of Alberta. But Ollee Owens comes through with a real winner of an album.

(c) Copyright 2024 George D. Graham. All rights reserved.
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