Roxanne Potvin takes an old time blues flavour and serves it up for contemporary consumption with just enough rock, country, folk, and jazz influences to be a promo rep's cross-marketing dream.
Nanaimo gets a look on Monday when Potvin plays the must-see show of the fall at Queen's.
At the tender age of 23, Potvin sings with the soul of the women who blazed the way like Aretha Franklin or a wee Bonnie Rait infected with some punchy Blues horns.
She's the real thing, a girl that Jake and Elwood Blues would be hard-pressed to resist doing unspeakable things with. Admittedly I'm not easy to impress after years of listening to the same old stuff dished up in different packages but Potvin's new album made me sit up and take notice.
The Way It Feels (March 2006, Alert Music) is a great example of the value of having intuitive and experienced people in your corner of the studio.With award-winning producer Colin Linden at the helm (Colin James, Tom Wilson) The Way It Feels is a breath of fresh air in a season jammed with cookie cutter heavy hitters.
"Getting to know and work with Colin Linden has been tremendous," Potvin says. "The whole experience of making this album just taught me so much, took me out of . . . took me to a different kind of studio experience."
With the buzz Potvin's writing and performing has garnered over the last few years, and with Linden in her corner, it wasn't hard to secure top-notch artists like Daniel Lanois, Bruce Cockburn, and John Hiatt to appear on the album.
What brought Linden and the rest of them to this project was the strength and breadth of her songwriting and the authentic power of her old-school voice.
"I can't say how thrilled I am that these people came together to play with me on my songs," she says. "To cut a recording session with Wayne Jackson of the Memphis Horns who has played on everything from Elvis' 'Suspicious Minds' to Aretha's 'Respect' -- I mean, just how inspiring is that? And then to have John Hiatt in the studio in Toronto with me . . . if I couldn't hear his voice on the record I'd think I dreamed that!"
A gifted writer, Potvin's album is heavy on original tracks.
"I was taking a couple of risks with my songwriting. . . . it's been interesting to play all of that new material."
That freshness garnered Potvin a nomination for this year's Maple Blues Awards' Female Vocalist of the Year. In addition to being a talented studio musician, Potvin has the strength to bring it on stage where she combines quiet confidence, sincere innocence, and a fire that would make mama Aretha proud. It's a combination that never fails to engage her audiences.
Inside this lovely and talented package is a down to earth spirit that belies her young years who's navigating her career with careful thought. It's about, "Figuring out my own rhythm ... I'm in no rush, I want to make the best decisions I can, I've been really lucky to be able to do that so far," she says. Find out more at myspace.com/roxannepotvin. Ah, I'll save you the time: just go buy the album.
The show starts at 10 p.m. Tickets at the door or at Music Maxx.
- With more than a decade in the trenches of the music industry, we're reasonably sure Alexandria knows what she's talking about: e-mail at [email protected].