This excellent offering from Vickie Carrico is every bit as much soul as it is blues - and soul of the Stax and deep southern variety at that. The overall sound is complimented by a fine three piece horn section as well as some great keyboards; in particular a wonderful organ sound that features on several tracks.
"Just Dance" is a wonderful mix of blues and soul with just a hint of rock, whereas "Find Me A Friend" is more of a funky number - not George Clinton or Funkadelic sort of funky mind you, more of a bluesed up, rougher O'Jays sort of funk sound. With "Lose My Mind" we have more of a bluesy feel supported by a fine 'harp' interlude.
Personal favourite is "Sugar Up", which pulls the blues, soul and funk influences into a finely tuned and storming track. We also have a couple of great Stax covers from Bluesbunny favourites and songwriters extraordinaire Isaac Hayes & Dave Porter - the much underrated Mable John's "You're Taking Up Another Man's Place" and Ruby Johnson's "If I Ever Needed Love". The CD is closed out by "Simply Love", a superb middish tempo, horn and organ backed number.
Despite a deceptively sluggish start with the first couple of tracks, once Vickie is up to speed this develops into a real cracker of an album. A great mixture of deep soul, good time blues, a little bit of funk and whole lot of fun.