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Texas Platters, Margaret Moser
Wendy Colonna Old, New, Borrowed, & Blue: Live at Antone's
Wendy Colonna's extensively packaged Old, New, Borrowed, & Blue is an ambitious undertaking: two CDs and a DVD recorded live at Antone's. It's also a risky one with a touch of overkill in the DVD, where she's styled like a Mucha nymph, since Colonna is a relative newcomer without the local history that usually accompanies live recordings. Yet the Louisiana native possesses a smoky, alluring voice, and her impressive songwriting dominates the recordings; all but two songs are hers. Colonna chisels her finely faceted gems in "Girls of Stone," "Coffee Today," "Hold Me Tight," and "Thunder" and does so with panache and confidence. It's little coincidence that the title track of her last CD, Right Where I Belong, was picked up by Toni Price on her latest recording, because if it feels like there's a hole in Austin's musical psyche left by Price's departure, Wendy Colonna is the one most likely to fill it.
NEWS- ISSUE 32 (FALL 2007) WENDY COLONNA’s triple play Singer-songwriter Wendy Colonna thought she was pitching a nice little concept when she suggested that Music & Entertainment Television, the Austin-based Central Texas music channel, start doing some “little baby interview clips” to splice into their “ME Live!” performance series. Then they asked her if she’d want to make a recorded-live DVD with just the sort of interview segments she’d suggested.
Colonna, who turned 30 on Sept. 30, had no idea she’d be diving into the biggest project of her life. Old, New, Borrowed & Blue: Live at Antone’s, done as a pilot project for ME TV combines an 11-clip DVD and a 22-track double CD.
“It’s different than going into the studio and cuttin’ until you get a really groovy track,” explains the Lake Charles, LA native, who moved to Austin seven years ago. “And it’s different than rehearsing for a show, where you play and then it’s like, ‘I’m on. And here’s the art we made and now it’s gone.’ It’s like, ‘Here’s the art we’re making live, and here it is again.’ So we worked really hard to get it really succinct and have all the arrangements just be stellar and have all the vocal parts just really shine.”
For ME TV, the project will serve as a marketing tool to attract other artists for similar packages. For Colonna, it might be the launching pad she’s been looking for.
She used the opportunity to re-record songs from her out-of-print first album, 2003’s Red, including “Hey,” “Hold Me Tight” and “Girls of Stone,” and some fleshed-out tunes from her shoestring-financed second album, last year’s Right Where I Belong. The live set also features several new cuts that show Colonna’s creative range: from pensive, vulnerability-baring ballads and “moody, epic stories” to jazzed-up pop and R&B to strong-woman soul (and (soulfulness) in a voice that goes from dusky to Dusty- and other ladies whose influences you’ll recognize.
– Lynne Margolis
HOUSTON PRESS Wendy Colonna
By Bob Ruggiero
Published: September 6, 2007
Wendy Colonna is hot, no question, but the Austin singer-songwriter's considerable musical talents make her sassy sexuality secondary — perhaps an even greater achievement. With smoky vocals that call to mind Norah Jones or Joan Osborne, Colonna's expansive musical domain encompasses rock, soul, jazz and blues, making her something of an all-purpose woman. That versatility can be heard — and seen — on her new release Old, New, Borrowed, and Blue: Live at Antone's. A sprawling package of two music CDs and one live DVD recorded at the venerable club (plus interviews), it finds Colonna backed by her regular band as well as an ensemble of local musicians. While we don't get to see a demonstration of her reputed mad kickboxing skills along with her guitar playing, the project is one that should elevate Colonna's status regionally, if not nationally.
SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS Jim Beal Jr.: Four artists are celebrating CD releases
Web Posted: 08/22/2007 05:15 PM CDT
San Antonio Express-News
Wendy Colonna live
Talk about ambitious. Wendy Colonna, from Austin by way of Lake Charles, La., is celebrating the release of "Old, New, Borrowed & Blue: Live at Antone's," a two-CD/one-DVD package recorded live at the storied Austin club. Friday night Colonna will showcase songs from "Old, New" at a "Red Room Presents" show at the Lion and Rose pub, 842 N.W. Loop 410.
Colonna is a fearless performer with an excellent voice and plenty of songwriting talent who brings together rock, blues, funk, soul and whatever else she believes fits. The result is an energetic brand of music that'll tug heartstrings and move shoestrings in equal measure. Songs such as "Bound to Fall," "Right Where I Belong" and "Coffee Today" proves Colonna has chops to match her ambition.
FLANFIRE BLOG:
Wendy, Alpha Rev, and the Rocketboys!
What a wonderful present for any occasion -- the brand-new Wendy Colonna two-CD plus DVD, "Old, New, Borrowed and Blue: Live at Antone's." Twenty songs, all but two Wendy originals, that take us from her first song ever written in her high school daze to the brand-new (at the time) "Your Parade," which is part 1 of her Peter Pan trilogy (parts 2 and 3 to come). Wendysongs include "We," "Dirty Wife," "Bound to Fall," Easy," "October" (with a tease of "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now" to open), "Weight of the World," "Thunder," "Girls of Stone" (WOW!), "May Day," "Hey," "Vacancy," "Right Where I Belong," "Sodom," "Does It Satisfy," "Hold Me Tight," "Nothin' Gonna Take My Love," and "Coffee Today." Wendy and her band also cover Neal Kassanoff's "Noah" and Wendy and guitarist Chad Pope swap lyrics in the Ike and Tina Turner song, "Poor Little Fool."
Speaking of the band -- Eldrige Goins on drums, Harmoni Kelley on bass, Pope on guitar, Dave Madden on keyboards (and a little guitar) -- plus special guests Will Taylor and Shawn Sanders on viola and cello and Simon Wallace on harmonica on some of the tunes. Wendy also coaxed cameo backup vocals from Ed Jurdi, Shelley King, Kat Edmunson, and Nakia on the anthemic "Nothin' Gonna Take My Love." The REAL backing vocals were from every band member.
I had much earlier reviewed the concert itself (see the archives), so these comments focus on the product -- which is superior in every respect. The DVD, produced by ME Television's Shane Metcalf, features interviews with Wendy pals Shelley King, Guy Forsyth, Ginger Leigh, and others ... plus two bonus tracks and an informative interview with Wendy herself -- and 11 songs out of the 20 in the main DVD section. The concert itself was done in two acts -- Act 1 with Wendy wearing a soft outfit and flowers in her hair, Act 2 with the funkier, sexier Wendy.
Give this package to anyone you know in the phony bologna music business to show them what a REAL Louisiana woman can do WITH HER CLOTHES ON -- there is absolutely no comparison with Wendy's genuine songwriting, singing, and performance talent (not to mention her true earthiness and the poetry in her very fingers as well as on the pages she writes) with that Disneyland produced nonsense that poses for commercial music today.
Texas Music Magazine *
Summer 2006 Issue *
William Michael Smith
Austin’s Wendy Colonna is shrewdly urban, surprisingly hip and she’s got a coquettish, bluesy Joan Osbourne thing working. For someone so young, she also has a gift for complex, adult-situation lyrics. A bit dark and boozy, Colonna’s Husky voice oozes that warm, languorous Rita Coolidge delta spirit and, with savvy players like guitarist Wayne Sutton (Patrice Pike) and keyboardist, Cole el-Saleh (Carolyn Wonderland) in the studio lineup, the Lake Charles native packs plenty of pleasing southern funk and big beat bounce into originals like “Mayday” and “Sail On.”
The bigger the arrangement, the brighter Colonna seems to shine. Driving tracks like “Does it Satisfy,” which feature sultry Ephriam Owens, trumpet, seem like perfect vehicles for Colonna’s full-throated vocals. Nevermind that these aren’t sing-in-the-shower-after-the-first-listen ditties; Colonna’s smart and sure, and she stretches things. She has to be given time to sink in but when she does, she will set a hook deep in your ear – Right where She belongs.
This is Texas Music *May 2006 * Adam Black
(4½ out of 5)
Wendy Colonna offers a tonic for those who remember Aretha, Marvin, and Stevie making meaningful albums that helped weave the socio-sonic tapestry of a generation — for those who cringe when they hear Joss Stone hailed as the most "precociously gifted" soul singer of her era (seriously). If you too are wondering, "Whither soul music?" — R&B that shoots from the soul and aims at the heart — Louisiana born Colonna points the way.
Occasionally young artists recall the glory of yesteryear's Detroit and add a little something new — artists like India.Arie, whose debut Acoustic Soul borrowed from Stevie and injected a post hip-hop sensibility with a folk-ish lilt. With her Right Where I Belong, a disc bound to please disaffected soul-survivors and win over new fans too, Colonna joins Arie center stage.
The guitar slinging Austin, Texas transplant similarly borrows from others — Dusty Springfield's Dusty In Memphis and Carole King's Tapestry spring to mind; and she too adds her own ingredients to the stew, including a spoonful of bluesy swamp rock and a hint of a Texas twang. (That's no surprise — Colonna's too-large-to-shout-out session crew reads like a who's who of Austin's musical in-crowd.)
Colonna sets the tone for all that follows with the chugging funk of "Easy" (listen), the first of eleven self-penned numbers, clearly juxtaposing the human capacity for darkness against the brilliance of, severally, the natural world, her wonderful tune-smithing, and her stunning voice — an instrument that never sounds stretched and always sounds sexy. No matter how crappy things might seem, she counsels, just Step outside and watch the day go by / It's easy to believe / The breeze is high, the sky's on fire / It's easy to believe.
The rest of Right Where I Belong flows in the voice of a mature musician, who — as the title suggests — is confident of her place among things. Other standouts include the delightful "May Day" (listen), the gentle "Right Where I Belong" (listen), and the dirge-like gospel of "Nothin Gonna Take My Love" (listen); but to pick just these four seems churlish, as none of the remaining seven can fairly be described as anything less than well-crafted. Add to all this producer Stephen Doster's willingness to let the musicians play out within well-defined limits, and Wendy Colonna should soon discover she belongs in a whole load more places than she ever imagined.
