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Marcia Ball's Bio:

2001's Presumed Innocent from Marcia Ball is yet another rollicking, good humored reason why this Austin marvel continues to be nominated as artist of the year for the W.C. Handy Blues Award year after year.

Marcia Ball's Sing It! has her teamed up with Irma Thomas and Tracy Nelson, a splendid combination of talent. She has several solo albums behind her and more coming in the future, but Sing it! has been very well received. It earned her an interview on 11/3/98 PBS's "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, which gave her excellent national exposure.

Add the W.C. Handy award "Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year" to Marcia's list of achievements and you begin to understand her talent. Marcia Ball is an important factor in the Austin music scene, helping make Austin the music "capital" it is.

Let Me Play With Your Poodle is typical Marcia, full of ribald double meaning she leaves for the audience to interpret in their own way, and grown from a long blues tradition of tunes with suggestive lyrics.

Marcia grew up surrounded by the rollicking Louisiana rhythms, honky-tonk, gospel and blues that characterize her style. Ted Raymond, writing in the Fort Walton, FL, Daily News, said of Marcia, "In the pantheon of stride piano artists, she's ranked right up there with vintage Fats Domino, Professor Longhair, Dr. John, Leon Russell - and the killer himself, Jerry Lee Lewis. ...After exploding behind the keyboard for a couple of numbers, she'll uncork a slow, bluesy tune - and unveil a smokey voice that grabs you equally as raptly as her piano pyrotechnics." Rick Mason of the Star Tribune called her "the bayou queen of the piano."

Her band includes Don Bennett on bass, Chris Miller on guitar, Dan Torosian on sax, Chris Hunter on drums. Marcia lists Johnny Medina, her sound man and photographer, as a member of her "band" as well.

Her website is full of sound clips and interesting tidbits.

User: hitech

Marcia Ball's Albums
Tower Takes Texas By Storm - Presented By Rounder Records - Various
Louisiana Spice - 25 Years of Louisiana Music on Rounder Records
Live at Waterloo Records
Live! Down the Road

Marcia Ball Album Editorial:
For more than 30 years Ball has been delivering her signature brand of Texas blues Louisiana RB and Gulf Coast swamp pop to audiences all over the world. She has earned a huge and intensely loyal following through critically acclaimed albums and continued non-stop touring. Live shes simply unbeatable PLIVE! DOWN THE ROAD a blistering set recorded at the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in 2004. The CD mixes songs from throughout her career including longtime fan favorites like La Ti Da and Crawfishin as well as newer material like Louella. Ball gives each song the workout of a lifetime reinventing and reinvigorating every track with the immediacy and fire only a live show can deliver.
So Many Rivers

Marcia Ball Album Editorial:
If Bonnie Raitt played piano and had a little more New Orleans in her shed be proud to claim the soulful sincerity of this release as her own. Producer Stephen Bruton (long Raitts lead guitarist) polishes this groove-laden set with rich arrangements of horns and harmonies as Cajun accordionist Wayne Toups former Storyville vocalist Malford Milligan and blues guitarist Pat Boyack provide additional sonic spice. Though the second-line syncopation of Foreclose on the House of Love the buoyant swamp pop of Honeypie (with Toups) and an acoustic mandolin-driven transformation of the funky Three Hundred Pounds of Hongry find the veteran blueswoman in playful spirits she shows her depth as a balladeer on originals such as Give Me a Chance and The Storm as well as a revival of Arthur Alexanders classic If Its Really Got to Be This Way. Between the river towns of New Orleans (Balls musical homeland) and Austin (where shes based) these 14 cuts cover a lot of ground. Don McLeese


Marcia Ball Album Editorial:
Texas pianist/vocalist Marcia Ball is at a creative and commercial high point in her career. After years of critically acclaimed releases and thousands of jam-packed live shows Marcias career has kicked into high gear since the release of Presumed Innocent. So Many Rivers showcases Marcia Balls mastery of roadhouse rock New Orleans RB and deep soul ballads along with a continuing sophistication that makes her a prime candidate to reach fans of adult rockers like Bonnie Raitt and Lucinda Williams. Digipak. Alligator. 2003.
Presumed Innocent

Marcia Ball Album Editorial:
Raised near the border of Texas and Louisiana Marcia Ball continues to claim dual citizenship for her music forging a rollicking roadhouse groove that has never sounded richer or more vital than it does here. With her piano style steeped in the soul of New Orleans Ball and coproducer Doyle Bramhall enlist the Cajun accordion of Pat Breaux and the bluesy Texas bite of Pat Boyacks guitar and Gary Primichs harmonica on a collection that holds its own with the classics that inspired her. Highlights range from a duet with Delbert McClinton on Allen Toussaints You Make It Hard to the supper-club sophistication of Shes So Innocent to the album-closing homage to Huey Piano Smith You Make Me Happy. Though uptempo rhythm blues dominates the selection the open-hearted balladry of Let the Tears Roll Down and I Have a Right to Know brings out the best in Ball. Don McLeese
Sing It!

Marcia Ball Album Editorial:
Why settle for one great female vocalist when you can get three especially when theyre stylish soul diva Irma Thomas Tracy Mother Earth Nelson and swamp rocker (and roller) Marcia Ball. The talented trio take the iSing It! title seriously belting all hues of blues with satisfying sass and sincerity. Backed by a fine and funky band of Memphis-soul stalwarts and New Orleans session stars the ladies shine both individually and as a team. Thomas the longtime Soul Queen of New Orleans struts her stuff on the Bobby Blue Bland classic Yield Not to Temptation while Ball puts some patented bayou boogie powered by her slinky piano lines into her spotlight songs. Nelson repeatedly stops the show with her enormous wraparound voice transforming tunes like In Tears from simple country-flavored ballads into cathartic emotional experiences. But its the combined voices that makes the session so special and the title track a soulfully scintillating second-line anthem is the most enjoyable example of the vocal virtuosity of these women. Its a quintessential New Orleans celebration of singing well worth the purchase price by itself and it like the entire album also serves as an excellent sampler of the multiple talents of the superb song stylists involved. --IMichael Point
Let Me Play With Your Poodle

Marcia Ball Album Editorial:
Long tall Marcia Ball kicks off her new album with the title track Let Me Play with Your Poodle a rollicking double-entendre blues number originated by Tampa Red. In Balls version she reinforces the salacious lyrics with a punchy horn section her own second-line New Orleans piano solo and her own giddy vocal. And Ball doesnt need to dip into blues history for a bawdy song; she proves she can write her own on The Right Tool for the Job. The rest of the album isnt quite so blunt but whether shes admitting she Cant Trust My Heart or declaring theres Something I Cant Do Ball locks her voice and piano parts so firmly into the syncopated Gulf Coast rhythms that there always seems to be a party in full swing on this recording.p The album is dominated by the sights and sounds of Balls native Louisiana from the culinary delights of Clarence Garlows Crawfishin to the ironic history of Randy Newmans Louisiana 1927. Ball is now based in Austin however and she is backed by some of the finest blues musicians in Texas including Clarence Hollimon who plays guitar on Im Just a Prisoner and Doyle Bramhall who sings the duet vocal on How Big a Fool. Ball doesnt possess the strongest voice in the blues world but few revivalists can match her instinctive grasp of rhythmic phrasing. Geoffrey Himes
Dreams Come True

Marcia Ball Album Editorial:
Austins leading ladies of contemporary blues team up for the best album ever on club-owner Clifford Antones label. The songs mix Ike Turner gems with three Ball compositions two from bassist Sarah Brown and others by Harold Battiste and Lavelle White. Which means the accent is on old-fashioned hooks and harmonies perfectly executed right from the opening Ike and Tina hit A Fool in Love. All three women sing lead on that number but otherwise they trade the spotlight. Balls singing is tart n sweet with a hint of Texas dust. Her barrelhouse piano is the CDs most distinctive instrumental voice. And her Snake Dance is the biggest surprise conjuring a New Orleans voodoo vibe. Strehli belts in clear powerful tones--imagine Ma Rainey as a rocker. Barton sings sassy with a slight sultry slur--also with the know-how to make Good Rockin Daddy 50s perfect. Bartons career stalled after this 1990 session while Ball and Strehli have continued to make excellent recordings. Ted Drozdowski
Blue House
Hot Tamale Baby

Marcia Ball Album Editorial:
This relentlessly upbeat album Marcia Balls second for Rounder marks her 1985 graduation from the Louisiana-Texas crawfish circuit to the national scene. But it still packs the freewheeling feel of her four-sets-a-night years. These 10 tunes dash through soul (Im Gonna Forget About You) RB (Dont You Know I Love You) blues (Another Mans Woman) rock roll (Balls own Thats Enough of That Stuff) and zydeco (the Clifton Chenier-penned title track) with such gleeful abandon they seem to pass in a flash. All the while Ball--whos joined by her three-piece band and a visiting horn section--makes like a female Jerry Lee Lewis pounding her piano with bare- knuckled virtuosity as she shouts and swoops through her good-time lyrics. Drummer Doyle Bramhall went on from this recording to write The House Is Rockin Tightrope and Wall of Denial for Stevie Ray Vaughan. Ted Drozdowski
Soulful Dress
Gatorhythms

Marcia Ball Album Editorial:
A mainstay of the festival circuit and blues clubs Marcia Ball is a captivating performer and a one-woman ambassador for the south Louisiana sound she loves. This her third Rounder album dates from 1989. Its a mostly self-composed program that doesnt quite capture the joy of her live shows but comes close at times. Of all the new songs The Power of Love is best. Its a beautifully poised performance that grows slowly and inexorably from a two-minute vocal-piano intro. Some of the songs are built around the mournful swamp-pop chord changes; others around Cajun two-steps. The album closes with country star LeRoy Parnells Red Hot which has since become one of her show-closers. Colin Escott

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