Notes
If the big heels and the high-production fashion values have you skeptical about this lady, keep reading. Purring and snarling through 'Your One And Only', crowing danger through the tasty acoustic gem 'Behind My Back', double-daring her way through the buoyant 'Purple Tattoos', Cathy Jean has a natural gift for pairing her formidable voice with some pretty mean presence and solid song-writing (not a single cover on the entire CD). Great stuff-- seductive, tough and convincing, backed by a terrific group. Excellent and recommended. --BLUES ACCESS MAGAZINE, USA Let's begin with the sleeve & booklet on this one, why? Coz it's the first thing about this album that hits you when you first pick it up... here is the SEXIEST CD cover you are likely to clap eyes on for a good while, respect both to Cathy Jean (for scrubbing up so well) and to Tony Ward for the lens work. To business then and on with the show... The first track is a rockin' Blues boogie and, as with all 15 tracks offered, is a Cathy Jean original composition. The proceedings continue in more subdued yet no less intense manner with a collection of songs which are beautifully crafted and delivered yet stray somewhat from the Blues idiom. Shades of Carol King weave in & out of these numbers with lyrics crafted from real-life scenarios, and that is to CJ's credit. A smooth after-dinner swing-jazz style is used here to good effect behind lyrics which go: '...I'm in the bedroom with the ugly pink shag rug. Spiders are on me the curtains are crawling with bugs. The walls cave in and I'm suffocated in mud. I'm in the kitchen by the awful custom cork bar. Blood is running out of the cracked orange cookie jar...' Hmmmm.... The overall feeling is one of being priviliged to be let into Cathy Jean's innermost thoughts and to be invited to an 'under-the-skin' episode complete with a gaggle of excellent musicians. --BLUES FREE PRESS MAGAZINE, UNITED KINGDOM What have we here? Cathy Jean decorates the cover of her latest CD wearing a short blue dress, high heels and wild hair, looking both sexy and vulnerable. It's an unashamedly blatant act of using sex to sell a CD, and she doesn't need to do it as she has the voice and the songs. In fact she writes all but one of the 15 tracks here herself and co-writes the other one. A number of different musical styles are in evidence, from the boogie riff rocker 'Your One And Only', through the curious jazz tinged 'The Kids From Glen Burnie', to the rocky 'Dirty One' and the Eastern tinged sounds of 'Austria'. It's Cathy Jean's smokey voice that immediately draws you in, especially on the opening 'Your One And Only' and the slow 'Behind My Back'. On 'Kauai' she sounds more like Sheryl Crow. She has surrounded herself with top class musicians, the core of which, on guitar, bass, drums and keys know how to rock with her, like on 'Call It (Quits)'. So many good songs, ...check out 'Prophet'. A good album. --BLUES MATTERS MAGAZINE, UNITED KINGDOM Take 2: USA - CATHY JEAN: 'Marshall Road Apocalypse' Whew, we got the special edition CD at the office with 16 page booklet with 2 'edgy-'y photos included that do not appear in the copy you'll get from Amazon.com. What can we tell you beyond the above? Well here is a tortured sounding woman working off her ills and frustrations and running amok. Great CD, great music, not always Blues but the lyrics certainly are (and there are driftings towards Sheryl Crow). There's some easy listening tones here to mix with the silk, and occasionally pained, voice that sometimes hides the bitterness of the lyric which on reflection make them even more hard hitting. Yep, I'll recommend this one and will be playing it quite a lot! --BLUES MATTERS MAGAZINE, UNITED KINGDOM Now on her third album, Baltimore-based belter Cathy Jean has the pipes (and the looks) to break out of the regional scene. Her tough, powerful, raspy voice-- similar to that of Heart's Ann Wilson-- works perfectly with the raucous barroom blues
