Hilary James and Simon Mayor have produced some of my all time favorite children's CDs with songs that are raucous and silly while providing nourishing food for thought for young listeners and their friends.

On Bluesy, James, Mayor and friends swing the blues and it ends up being more blues-ish than bluesy. James doesn't have the gutsy range needed for songs of revenge and betrayal. She ends up sounding like she's suffering more from ennui than from dirty double crossin'.

James' voice has the high, clear quality of a silver flute in this CD. Singers in that voice risk sounding whiney when they try to do the blues. James barely escapes that on the plaintive delivery of "Meet Me Where They Play the Blues." Instead of sounding despondent or suicidal in "Ready for the River," she sounds as if she's off on a lark. ("I've made my will, wrote some notes / I'm gonna keep on walking 'til my straw hat floats.") I wonder if she could have done a deranged Ophelia delivery with this one.

Trying to swing these songs fails miserably. "Brady and Duncan" sounds like the town picnic, and in "Double Crossin' Papa," James doesn't sound sure she's sorry he cheated on her (while responding by cheating on him). When this Brit tries to do dialect in "One Black Rat" and threatens to hide her shoe somewhere near the blaggard's shirt tail, she only escapes being offensive because it's so wimpy.

In "Poor Wayfaring Stranger" she does reach for but in the end misses the spirituality for which it was written.

Besides vocals, James provides mandobass and double bass.

Until this CD, I didn't know that Simon Mayor was such an accomplished multi-instrumentalist. Guitar (acoustic, electric and bass), mandolin, mandola and a mean fiddle are credited to him. There's some excellent uncredited fiddling in "Meet Me Where They Play the Blues" that I'm sure is him as well. I'd like to have an instrumental CD that features Mayor on the fiddle more.

The sameness of the arrangements detracts from the excellent musicianship of Mayor and the other musicians on this album. Performers, besides Mayor and James, are Phil Fentimen (acoustic guitar, double bass), Brian Willcocks (accordion), Ian Campbell (electric guitar), Beryl Marriott and Matt Empson (pianos), Andy Baum and Janet Giraudo (backing vocals) and Dave Mattacks (drums).

Everyone on this CD is an excellent musician and I'm glad to learn they do things other than children's CDs, but James should stay away from the blues and focus on show tunes or airs or something else more suited to her voice and delivery.

[ by J. Higgins-Rosebrook ]