| Music Style: Blues/Jazz Ensemble
About Us:
If there's a finer interpretive singer than Price anywhere else on the planet right now, please let me know. As it is, the fact that this local treasure can be seen pretty much any week of the year, usually for free, is a better reason to be thankful you live in Memphis than anything else I can think of.
Excerpt from Chris Herrington; The Memphis Flyer
Di Anne Price is a survivor, an unquenchable optimist who simply refuses to let the blues darken her soul. That's not to say there's any lack of depth or conviction when she does tackle a blues song; she clearly loves the form and digs into it with relish. (Truth be told there's a bluesy feel to almost every song she sings). But there's an inherent dignity in her approach, a resolute strength that leaves no doubt the blues will never, ever win the battle for Di Anne's heart.
Excerpt from John Taylor; Blues On Stage
On her third self-made disc, "To Hell with Love" (no label, 3.5 stars) Memphis's premier piano lady Di Anne Price lets her remarkable band step to the fore. And since "Her Boyfriends" (as they're dubbed) consist of saxman Jim Spake, drummer Tom Lonardo and bassist Tim Goodwin, the results are thrilling, especially their coaxing, bebop take on Louis Prima's Sing, Sing, Sing and the prowling backup they provide on the Doc Pomus standard Lonely Avenue.
Price herself continues to sing and play like she stepped out of the '40s. She makes the Lyle Lovett tune She's No Lady, She's My Wife bump along like a newly found 78, puts sultry life into Just for a Thrill by Memphis jazz pianist Lil Hardin (better known as Louis Armstrong's collaborator/wife) and gives a Mose Allison lift to the Ray Charles number Sticks and Stones. But every track has character - Long John and its keyboard filigree worthy of Memphis Slim; the smoky strut of Room with a View.
Excerpt from Bill Ellis; The Commercial Appeal
She's been called the best-kept secret in Memphis, yet Di Anne Price has spent nearly 30 years on the city's live-music circuit, playing everywhere from hotels and restaurants to outdoor festivals and nightclubs. A native Memphian in her early 50s, Price is a product of the city's musical melting pot. Like Jerry Lee Lewis, she has a dazzling command of American popular song: bawdy hokum blues and ferocious big-band swing; honky-tonk weepers and red-hot R&B shimmering torch songs and vaudeville hand-me-downs. At any of her myriad live gigs as well as on her three self-released albums, Price's versatility is boundless yet never showy: Whether purring through Nina Simone's lascivious "Sugar In My Bowl" or contemplating the pain in the Ray Charles classic "You Don't Know Me," Price makes the songs her own.
"I think of myself as a storyteller," Price says on a dark December afternoon at the Blue Monkey, nursing a tequila on the rocks, dressed casually in olive and khaki, dragging occasionally on a cigarette. "I don't think of myself as a singer with a great voice or a big voice, because I don't. My speaking voice is my singing voice. But I like to tell stories. I need to reach you the listener with what I'm saying. It has to do with articulating the feel and the soul of the piece. To me, jazz and blues are all about life experiences, and I'm all about telling those stories."
She learned many of those stories from her family, a musically inclined clan who instilled in Di Anne an appreciation for what she calls simply "good music."
"My mother and father were really into music, all kinds. My mother writes lyrics, and my dad played guitar and sang. It was a part of our growing up. A family thing. My sisters played. It was just the thing to do, and I always knew what I wanted to be. Some kids want to be doctors or nurses or lawyers. I always wanted to be an entertainer, because music has always made me feel so good. Not that it's always treated me so good, but I have to do it. I always wake up with a song in my heart, and I go to bed with a song in my heart. It's always been there, and it's always got to be there."
Excerpt from John Floyd; a Memphis-based writer and author of Sun Records: An Oral History (Avon, 1998). A former editor with The Memphis Flyer, he has contributed to The Journal of Country Music, Musician, and Rock & Rap Confidential, among other publications.
Members:
- Di Anne Price - Vocals, piano
- Jim Spake - Saxophones
- Tom Lonardo - Drums
- Jim Goodwin - Bass
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