HOLLE' THEE MAXWELL at  "THEE" Maxwell Cafe'

                  "A WONDERFUL ENCOUNTER"

If the only name of HOLLE'THEE MAXWELL, predestined her to record one of the first CD's of the collection, "LIVE" at the Maxwell Cafe', it's definitely not one of those objective coincidences, precious to the surrealists.  The first notes make you realize that it's pure magic, one of those miraculous relationships that mysteriously happened between a voice and a place........

An unusual place; there are many blues clubs, there are hundreds of them in the US; some in Europe and most of them are as similar as two drops of bourbon.  But the Maxwell Cafe' has something special, something unreal, it's some kind of a drunken boat ran onto the shore of the Seine, on the island called Ile de la Jatte, which inspired so many poets and painters of the period of Impressionism (Monet, Manet, Renoir, Seurat, Sisley, etc).  But nevertheless, getting in the Maxwell Cafe' makes yu feel as you were on Chicago during the Prohibition in one of those speakeasies, both clandestine and cozy where Jazz music and Urban Blues were created.

HOLLE"THEE MAXWELL, felt at home, as she was raised in Chicago (long after the reign of Al Capone), and also because her career is as remarkable as the Maxwell Cafe'!

Her wonderful soprano, coloratura voice got her to first learn the opera, singing the lyric repertoire, in German, Frence and Italian.  Her voice seemed to be predestined, she had everything to be one of the great African American prima donna's, from Marian Anderson, to Jessye Norman, Leontyne Price, and Barbara Henricks.

At seventeen years old she started going in the clubs;  1962 was the golden age of Soul music, so HOLLE"THEE MAXWELL changed her mind.  She creates one of those numerous "DOOWOP" groups, at Parker High School in Chicago, where she graduated, with one of those funny names, "The Toujourettes".  Three years later, later she recorded her first single.  According to the well known paper, Chicago Defender, HOLLE"THEE's mother was not happy with her daughter singing Jazz and BLues, following her classical studies.

Chicago has always been divided by class struggles.  HOLLE'THEE was torn apart, in the shady clubs of the South Side, she was just another blues singer, in the smart clubs of the North Side, she was considered as a marvelous Jazz singer; torn between two contradictary styles, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.  She would never deny them and at the end of the 70's she became the regular singer Jimmy Smith.  But in the meantime she took a liking to Gladys Knight and expecially to Aretha Franklin; she learned all of her songs by heart.

HOLLE"THEE MAXWELL got heart and voice.  But what about soul?  In 1977, she enters the group of Ike Turner, singing lead, one year after the split with Tina.  Holly and Ike become close friends, just friends.  To thank him for having the psychological enlightment, "Soul is all you miss!"  She had a wonderful answer, "Ike trampled without mercy on the rose colored glasses through which I had always seen the world!"

Now, HOLLE"THEE MAXWELL prefers to wear black glasses.  Her voice is still juvenile, only her phrasing brakes to show those Blues of the Soul without which she would just be a gifted singer.  Her diction became more lyric, her voice often goes in the low, without gettting to melodrama, because there is always a dazzling light at the end of her long and subtle improvisations.  HOLLE"THEE kept from her experience of Jazz music the sovereign freedom represented by the supreme art of scat and instinctive suspicion toward the cliche' of Blues at the kilometer!

For instance, in "Blues In G", in less than ten minutes she succeeded a flashing medley of a dozen great songs, from "Stormy Monday" to "Goin'To Chicago" to "C.C. Rider" , "Every Day I Have The Blues" to "Meet Me With Your Black Draws On!"  A surprising performance that will go on for all the evening!

HOLLE"THEE never just sings a song, she travels from one song to another following her desire...HOLLE"THEE MAXWELL is electric, but not only in her style...Blues, Gospel, Jazz and Soul are always found in the sea of her emotions.  We discover in this rough mirror a hugh musical culture, a passion for music that gives a sense to her life, a love for life that gives a strenght to a voice.  "I'm A Woman"...listen to how she changes the innocent song into a terrible and beneficial incantation like the Voodo Priestess...it's like the answer of the shepherdess to the shepherd, to the famous "I Got A Woman" recorded by Ray Charles, when HOLLE"THEE was only eight years old.

"Last Two Dollars" (Lady At The Casino) is curiously coupled with "Thrill Is Gone"(B.B. King) and sung with heartrendering voice.

Blues will never leave her.  Her version of "Dr. Feelgood" is rough and concise, far from the blazing singing exercises of the version of Aretha Franklin, which shadow still glides on "Give Me One Reason!"  Then, HOLLE'THEE roughly slides on Tina Turner's "Better Be Good To Me!"

Funky HOLLE'!! She scats like a bass player, in a duet with Bill Thomas, the guitar player, that's how she tantalizes the Maxwell Cafe'.  Then she ends with a tribute to the Turners, "Proud Mary" and "Love's Got Me" written by HOLLE'!  Everyone attending the show would wonder who between HOLLE'THEE amd Tina is the best and who did the best version?

That's how it goes in a blues club!  Far from the huge concerts and so close to one another, the artist and the audience have a real connection.  Nothing but music and emotion!

HOLLE"THEE MAXWELL did the best choice, the one of Blues and Jazz music, it is the choice of her heart!

This collection of CD is dedicated to the real artists. HOLLE"THEE MAXWELL is the first to open the collection, "LIVE" at the Maxwell Cafe'!  It is neither a choice, not a fate........it is pure magic, they are one of "THEE" same!