Irene Reid - Movin' Out (2003)

As I’ve said before, sprightly septuagenarian Irene Reid is part Billie Holiday, part Dinah Washington and pure, uncensored, knees-up, damn-the-consequences pleasure. On Movin’ Out, her fifth Savant release in seven years, Reid delivers a typically eclectic assortment of testifyin’ blues, energized ballads (only Reid could transform the plaintive “Lover Man” and fragile “A Sleepin’ Bee” into vigorous cooking lessons) and common sense exercises in self-satisfaction (the forthright get-yourself-together-and-get-off-your-ass platitudes of “Aiming at Nothing” and effervescent hopefulness of “Second Time Around.”) The songs may run the gamut from gutbucket candor to champagne bucket chic, but they all lead to the same satisfying conclusion: Reid’s a fool for love, but she ain’t no fool.~Christopher Loudon