Laura Rain
Gone are Nathaniel Mayer and Nolan Strong, Jackie Wilson and Darrell Banks, The Falcons and The Ohio Untouchables. Andre Williams resides in Chicago, Bettye LaVette in New Jersey. Fortune, Lu Pine, Groovesville, Impact, Ric-Tic, D-Town, Inferno, Hot Wax, Groove City Records, and so many more are but memories; Motown moved to California decades ago. Ye who abandoned all hope for Motor City rhythm and blues, enter here: Laura Rain and the Caesars are reclaiming the storied Detroit soul music legacy from the ravages of time, neglect, and electronic dance music.
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The Caesars are veterans of the Motor City's R&B, jazz, rock, and blues scenes. For more than a decade, the classically trained Laura Rain has been singing in Detroit and Los Angeles with an absolute freedom of expression, permitted by her wondrous voice, an instrument of infinite shadings in timbre that avails itself to effortless glides between registers. Often compared to Aretha Franklin, Rains's fire, feeling, and expressiveness are all her own. Producer, co-writer, and guitarist George Friend, another Detroiter returned home from L.A., has made his mark in multiple genres-rockabilly (Robert Gordon), R&B (The Sun Messengers), and blues (Janiva Magness}-and released a hip solo album of West Coast blues, Looka Here!, in 2004. Phil Hale has played keyboards for everyone from Martha Reeves to George Clinton, Stanley Jordan, Bettye LaVette, and James Carter.
Drummer Ron Pangborn, an original member of Was (Not Was), lays down beats that are perfectly fitted to the Caesars' retro-modern soul and blues.
Tom Hyslop of Blues Music Magazine says Laura Rain is "a force of nature ... While clearly informed and inspired by soul and R&B styles dating, roughly speaking, from the years between 1965 and 1985, Electrified is vital music for these times." Blues Junction's David Mac calls electrified "a super charged soul shot that generates enough energy to light a small town and ignite a fire under the ass of all of its inhabitants." Reflecting a bygone era
when songcraft and spine-tingling vocals outranked guitar solos, Laura Rain and the Caesars have waxed a superb album that falls squarely in the tradition of great soul music, and raised the bar significantly for their peers in today's blues scene.
In 2013, Laura Rain and the Caesars have been featured at the Anti Freeze Blues Fest, Tawas Blues By the Bay, Brighton Smokin' Jazz and Blues Barbecue, Marquette Area Blues Festival, Mackinac Island Music Festival and in clubs from Detroit to Los Angeles.
