by C. Liegh McInnis

Known nationally as the first artist on Cassandra Wilson’s label Ojah Media Group and known regionally as the flame that reminds us all that the blues ain’t nothing to play with, Rhonda Richmond is on the verge of becoming a star in her own right with her latest release Rhythm and Strings.  Writing seven of the eleven songs, Richmond proves herself to be a powerful songwriter, producing songs that weave a tapestry of sounds and themes.  Accordingly, Richmond allows the musicians to paint a wall of sounds that seamlessly blend Mississippi guitar plucked blues and West African percussion and grooves that manage to punch the listener in the gut while simultaneously caressing his pains.  This is a gritty album in the African notion that all roads eventually converge to one place, and what makes us human is that we all struggle to navigate those roads to find sanity and inner peace.  So in the spiritual vein of Minnie Riperton and Marvin Gaye, Richmond does not leave one musical genre or subject unturned.  Each song is a movement along the spectrum of African American music, revealing just how deep and dimensional black is.  Even her soulful voice, a soft alto, swings the pendulum from the grit of Mavis Staples to the cool of Cassandra Wilson to the fire of Bessie Smith and Big Mama Thornton.  And with her music and subjects, Richmond achieves the rare marriage of the secular and the spiritual proving that there is no way to address the soul without also addressing the body.  Thus, the power of the album is that Richmond’s lyrics (her imagery) do constant battle with her grooves for our attention, and we are left with vivid and echoing pictures upon which we may call when the mood strikes us as he laments, “Knotty pines and bricks surrounded me; scents of sand and wood compose me.  Out my window there’s a pecan tree, honeysuckle growing on the fence.  I drink coffee, sometimes wine…calms my mind.”

“Five Miles to Midnight” begins like a panther stalking is quarry or like a female in a stop sign dress appearing from the blacks of our minds.  The acoustic guitar playing of Bernard Jenkins seems more like a conjure man working his hoodoo.  But just when you think you are about to curl up to scotch and some pillow talk, Richmond’s lyrics shows its fangs, clutching us around the throat with “Our days work in Delta dirt, I’ve got sweat pouring down my shirt…fork tongue said he had corps to share…”  Richmond is a poet, painting pictures of a new South still dealing with old problems.  “Telling stories of the old drums thumping in my soul, guitar slides and bottleneck sounds out there I’ve never met.  Five miles to midnight I hear the blues dancing in the moonlight.”

“Yellow Candlelight” is a dance where Richmond’s vocals weave with the music and also with the vocals of Wilson.  Yet, Richmond shows us that subtlety can be powerful.  This is not a song that is simply cashing in on Wilson’s fame, but takes us back to a time when Wilson and Richmond were in the same band and had mastered the navigation of vocals, a call and response as it were, where they support and blend, diverge and reconnect, all the while leading us on a journey of self-declaration.  “Everybody’s trying to fix me.  Everybody’s trying to make me right.  I sit and write by yellow candlelight.  I pray for peace, pray for symmetry, pray for guidance from my deity.  I pray to consummate a space for me to create what’s real inside of me.”  The drum, bass, and guitar seem as one instrument, like streams blending into a winding river, and they provide just enough space for Richmond and Wilson to dance barefoot in the creek beds of sound created by the rhythm section.

“Angel Eyes” written by Matt Dennis places Richmond’s feet firmly on the same dirt walked by B. B. King and Muddy Waters and shows that sprinkled on that ground are the remains of dust from African lands, as she ends “excuse me while I disappear.”  “Sweet Berry Black” reminds us of the power of simplicity.  Richmond’s vocal floats around us like the smoke in a café and goes down our ears and into our souls like warm liquor.  “Now You’re Gone” shows us that the blues is a spiritual medium of African phonemes navigating a European syntax to articulate that the body is merely a medium to express the soul, as she asserts “You ain’t got no power here, trying to capture my soul” over a front porch blues groove.  She continues, “I must have been wearing thin skin ‘cause along came a strong wind and blew me right down.”  Richmond shows that the romance pain in the blues is merely a metaphor or a symbol for the collective or community blues of a people whose lives have been saturated with disillusion and disappointment.  “You left me here with dirty doors, scratched up floors, leaving me to clean.”  And Richmond’s remake of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” is a musical history lesson.  It begins with the traditional call and response of “I Love the Lord He Heard my Cry,” which is then refashioned by a funk bass chord that recalls Richmond’s cover of “People Make the World Go Round.”  “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” is haunting in that the guitar and bass combine with Richmond’s vocal to remind the listener that the song is asking a question, “Will the circle be unbroken?” which is a logical question in these hellish times.

The album contains two additional covers:  Donny Hathaway’s “People Make the World Go Round” and Jimi Hendrix’s “The Wind Cries Mary.”  Richmond stays true to the integrity of the songs, but through her arrangement of the tunes shows the infinite possibilities of black music.  Richmond has been performing “People Make the World Go Round” for years, but this version is nothing like what her followers have become accustomed.  You can still hear the café, but there is a more Latin feel created by the trumpet of Terry Miller and percussion of Adib Owens Sabir and Bruce Golden.  The acoustic bass of Reginald Veal anchors the groove, allowing Richmond’s voice to hover and dart between the guitar and percussion.  “The Wind Cries Mary” is slowed, but it does not drag.  Richmond wants to emphasize the howling or the ache of the wind that calls Mary.  In doing so, she is showing how our bodies respond to late nights and the wind brushing against our blue bodies or our lonely cribs.  Her voice is a soothsayer riding the groove of guitar and bass that becomes the moan of a night wind.

“Rhythm and Strings” is an autobiographical piece that pays homage to her parents as she asserts that they are “my rhythm and my string.”  And true to the musical form of the album, this piece has a rock/county feel that proves that country is about land, air, water, and the freedom to roam, run, and play.  John Cougar Mellencamp would be proud.  The steel guitar of Chris Alford plays hide and seek with the electric guitar of Bernard Jenkins as they both frame the storytelling of Richmond.  “I was just a little girl.  I sat by my mama’s side strummed my fingers up and down the piano keys.  She played the sweetest melody; it became a part of me…I was just a little girl.  I sat by my daddy’s side.  I begged to taste his morning coffee from his saucer.  He said ‘just a sip,’ I licked my lips. ‘I don’t want to stunt your growth.’  He sang the blues and played hambone on his knee.”

Richmond’s power comes from being a complete songwriter because her words have as much punch and are as creative as her music.  Displaying the same amount of soul and variety as Oshogbo Town, her first release, Rhythm and Strings proves that Richmond is a bona fide talent whose songs paint images than have the ability to transport us to spaces within ourselves that are both exhilarating and painful but always cathartic.  For more information about Rhonda Richmond and Rhythm and Strings contact Ojah Media Group www.ojahmediagropu.com, www.myspace.com/ rhondarichmond, or P. O. Box 193, Woodstock, New York  12498, or (504) 416-0221.

McInnis is the author of seven books, including The Lyrics of Prince:  A Literary Look, and the former publisher and editor of Black Magnolias Literary Journal.  He can be contacted through Psychedelic Literature, 203 Lynn Lane, Clinton, MS  39056, (601) 925-1281, psychedeliclit@bellsouth.net.