LEE AARON
Slick Chick
Barking Dog Music **½
Rocker-turned-crooner Lee Aaron loves the old stuff, songs like Doodlin' and Teach Me Tonight. With her quartet, the aptly named Swingin' Barflies, Aaron wraps her vocal pipes around a dozen retro-sounding numbers played with a hard-swinging approach. The bluesy Why Don't You Do Right, a get-your-butt-moving plea from a woman to her man, is a bluesy highlight, topped by Graham Howell's saxophone solo.
-Marke Andrews
LEE AARON & THE SWINGIN' BARFLIES
Slick Chick
Barking Dog Music
So she's gone from being a Metal Queen to a mere Slick Chick. So what? Lee Aaron has a sense of humour, and it's her saving grace as she takes the piss out of a bunch of old Dinah Washington hits. Her four-piece combo is able and willing, and on this recording - which grew out of a series of house gigs in Vancouver - they sound like they're having the time of their lives. Nobody is going to step up and make claims for Aaron as a great vocalist - though she's easier on the ears than Holly Cole any day - but that's not the point. Reviving "In The Dark," "Teach Me Tonight" and "Evil Gal Blues" as music to party, dance and drink to, does a lot more to keep the tunes alive than mummifying them in good taste.
-Peter Schneider
On this, her first album in four years, the liner notes confirm that she's paying homage to some of the singers who have inspired her including Nina Simone, Peggy Lee and even, Dinah Washington. She makes no attempt to imitate any of them however, other than to eschew the rock idiom. By and large she succeeds in her mission. And, what a pleasure to hear again, Teach Me Tonight, a more or less torch standard from the days prior to the sexual revolution. Best track? Probably the title one but each auditor must make a personal decision. And, let us hope that radio PDs will give this much deserved airplay. The fact that it's Canadian content is simply frosting on this tasty cake. Produced by Aaron and Jane Milliken and recorded at Vancouver's Quantum Sound and Barking Dog Studios.
-BW