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On her website Eilen Jewell said it was the blues that jump-started her interest in music back when she was a teenager in Idaho but, oddly, she never believed she was allowed pursue her passion. Jewell said, “I’ve always had this sense of self-doubt about it,” she admits. “Like, who am I to sing the blues? I’m a white girl from Idaho. I don’t know if I have a right to do that.” But she also remembers an old friend's advice: "Everyone has the right to do what they love in this world, regardless of who they are and what background they come from." Therefore, Down Hearted Blues is the singer-songwriter's first album of blues covers. Jewell recorded the album employing her usual stripped down arrangements with Jerry Miller playing outstanding electric guitar. Her husband, Jason Beek, played drums as well as washboard. The bass is an upright (unplugged, of course) and other acoustic sounds included fiddle, banjo, and mandolin. Soul-jazzman, Curtis Stigers, added so...

If you're listening casually Eilen Jewell's seventh full length album, Sundown Over Ghost Town , exhibits a quiet sameness to many of the tracks. So, in order to fully appreciate her work you need to pay attention. If you do the rewards are plentiful and the subtle differences in her arrangements become readily apparent. That's because the native of Boise, ID has several assets working for her: strong but very feminine vocal chords, the ability to write lyrics that mean something, and a highly professional band. Jewell's songs reveal an awareness of her surroundings and other people's lives. She lives on the folk side of country and has a little bit of Woodie Guthrie in her soul so she's not interested in the traditional, more commercial subjects of the genre. Instead of bars and trucks she sings about untamed horses and farmers who are about to lose everything. On "Half Broke Horse" Jewell sings, "No bridled horse can stand him / Or any ...