Year: 2005
Time: 74:07
Size: 171,0 MB
Label: Koch Records
Styles: Blues/Blues Rock
Art: Full
Tracks Listing:
1. Delicious Surprise - 4:15
2. Guilty - 4:52
3. Leave The Light On - 4:42
4. Lifts You Up - 3:58
5. Broken & Ugly - 4:47
6. Get Your Shit Together - 5:55
7. Immortal - 7:07
8. Monkey Back - 5:37
9. Am I The One - 10:44
10. Mama - 4:24
11. L.A. Song - 4:31
12. World Without You - 5:16
13. Whole Lotta Love - 7:53
Live At Paradiso recorded in 2004 at a show in Amsterdam while on a wildly successful European tour, Paradiso draws its 13 performances from a DVD released in March 2005, and it is the first time since that one-off, mid-afternoon VH1 show that the enormity of that voice has been done justice. The tracklist is unassailable, including the best songs from her first two releases (a nine-plus minute rendition of “Am I The One” and the title track from Immortal; “L.A. Song,” “Delicious Surprise,” “Mama,” and “Get Your Shit Together” from Screamin’ For My Supper), the previously mentioned rockers plus the three singles (“World Without You,” “Lifts You Up,” and the title track) from Leave The Light On, and two choice covers. Even on the relatively subdued, Adult Top 40-ready songs like “Leave The Light on” and “L.A. Song,” Hart goes for broke in her deliveries, singing as though entirely unbeholden to constructs of what conventional singing should sound like.
But the bulk of Paradiso consists of harder-driving rock numbers that give Hart ample opportunity to belt, growl, and snarl until there’s not much room to doubt that she’s the best rock and blues singer alive. She reinvents Randy Newman’s “Guilty,” and when she wails, “I just can’t stand myself,” she does so in a way that channels what sounds like a lifetime worth of pain. That’s the kind of singer Beth Hart is, and she’s the only singer I’ve heard since Janis Joplin who can lay bare such intimate emotion without making a person feel like an eavesdropper for having heard it. And, whether it’s the self-deprecation of “Broken And Ugly” or the undiluted desperation of “Am I The One,” there’s at least one such moment on every track on Paradiso, and the run of songs from “Lifts You Up” to “Mama” is essentially one protracted gut-check. And then there’s the album-closing cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love,” which Hart delivers so aggressively that it makes the entirety of Sleater-Kinney’s brilliant The Woods sound demure and outdated in its sexual politics.
Hart’s band skillfully manages the task of keeping pace with her (guitarist Jon Nichols, in particular, gets plenty of room to show off), though their arrangements do occasionally lack her fearlessness. And, as is the case with most live albums, the audience banter is of limited charm. The sheer joy Hart takes in performing for and interacting with an appreciative crowd, however, keeps that banter from becoming tiresome at least through the album’s 17th listen. I won’t vouch for it beyond that. The power of Hart’s music, on the other hand, remains fully intact every time. Finally, gloriously, Beth Hart’s recorded performances match the weight of her best-written material. “They’d call me an icon,” she sings in “Delicious Surprise.” Billboard got it right. And with Live At Paradiso, it’s high time that everyone else got it too.
Live At Paradiso
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