Album review: Chastity Brown, Back-Road Highways (Creative and Dreams Music Network)

Chastity Brown is that rarity, an R&B singer not in thrall to the diva delusion. Her folk-blues style instead comes from an earthier tradition – she cites the influence Leadbelly had on Woody Guthrie as a pivotal moment in her musical development.

Languid slide guitar and a ghostly burr of organ underscore “House Been Burnin'”, while her fellowship for the foreclosed and abandoned in “When We Get There” is evoked through Dylanesque harmonica and the way her voice cracks on the highest notes. Songs of return and redemption predominate, with violin accompanying her heartbreaking journey to pay final respects in “Solely”, and chipper banjo lightening her load in “After You”.

Download: House Been Burnin'; When We Get There; Solely; After You