Chrissie O’Dell & One Hot Mess - If I Had a Dime

Dime Time Productions

www.chrissieodell.com

10 tracks

If I told you that before I listened to this CD that I knew who Chrissie O’Dell was I’d be lying to you. As it turns out, she is one of the Long Island Blues Society’s entries into the upcoming IBC for best self-produced CD, and she made it past the first cut of 22 from the original 55 entries. She’s got a controlled, yet powerful voice and her vocals are really deep and dark but quite appealing.

The backing band is John Bendy on Guitar, Bassist Craig Costa, “Papa” John Mole on Drums, Bill Quinn on the Hammond Organ, and added vocals by Libby Cabello & Nancy Bahnsen. They are an excellent group of musicians, but the front person for this band is what really makes the CD special. Bendy’s guitar work is very solid and clean, Quinn’s organ work adds a nice depth to the CD, and the backline and backup folks are more than up to the task. But as I said, O’Dell is the real deal!

From the opening title track to “Forecast Calls for a Change” that closes the set, we get to see what this band has to offer, and they do have a lot! Her vocals lead the charge, with soul and heart and pain and joy all wrapped up into one dynamically presented package. She wrote 9 of the 10 tracks and they are above average songs that are fun to both listen and dance to. Slow and dirty blues like “Simple Kinda Women” and “I Miss You” are delivered with guttural and visceral passion. She switches it up on other slow tracks like “Sleep All Day” where the softer side of Chrissie emerges. But when she turns up the heat on songs like “You Lied to Me” and “Cut You Lose” she’s smoking hot. She gives us a little funk, too, on “Hot Potato”. A nice variety of stuff that is all done up so very well!

This is a very strong first effort for this artist who has done her time in the NY area music scene. Her CD is really good and deserves the national recognition it’s getting and going to continue to get. She, Bendy and the rest of the band offer up some outstanding and authentic sounding blues with a nice, fresh sound! Check this lady and her band out- you won’t be sorry for doing so!