Candice Ivory - When The Levee Breaks: The Music Of Memphis Minnie [CD]

Raised in Memphis and based in St. Louis, Candice Ivory hails from an illustrious musical family that shaped Memphis's secular and sacred sounds. Her great-uncle was the singer and guitarist Will Roy Sanders of the Fieldstones, one of the premier Memphis blues bands from the 1970s to the 1990s. Ivory grew up in the church, and by the age of eleven, she was singing in a choir that featured the soon-to-be-famous R&B artist D'Angelo. At 18, Ivory successfully auditioned for Betty Carter's Jazz Ahead residency at the Kennedy Center. While at Jazz Ahead, she met Carmen Lundy, who became her first voice teacher. Ivory continued her musical education at the New School University in New York, studying voice with Miles Griffith, Richard Harper, and Junior Mance while taking composition lessons with Cecil Bridgewater. - After releasing three acclaimed albums of jazz-driven original songs, vocalist Candice Ivory reveals a whole new sound on When the Levee Breaks: The Music of Memphis Minnie. When the Levee Breaks brings together all of her formative musical experiences in a tribute to Memphis Minnie (1897-1973), whose powerhouse vocals and compositional creativity served as inspiration for Ivory's own innovations as the Queen of Avant Soul. Produced by singular guitarist/bassist Charlie Hunter, a onetime D'Angelo collaborator, Ivory's When the Levee Breaks is a midnight run to the crossroads, where jazz, blues, gospel, and R&B all converge.