Marcia Ball

continued

it comes to the foreground mostly for intros, outros, and the occasional comment rather than functioning as the extension of Ball's musical soul. If you thought you had her figured out, check out her concert at the Ark on Monday, July 21, because she's up to new things here.

Up to now, many of Ball's songs have had a vaguely feminist orientation, drawing on the music of the classic blues queens and also turning male blues ideas on their heads. Among her new songs, her independent-blueswoman persona is in evidence on "Foreclose on the House of Love," which is written from the traditionally male breadwinner perspective, but for the most part Ball is concerned with love's subtleties and failures. Her dedication to other songwriters is slightly odd; Ball herself wrote six of the fourteen songs on the album. But a songwriter's album it is nonetheless: some of these pieces are classics in the making.