LISTEN: The Paula Boggs Band Shares Poignant New Single “Edith’s Coming Home”

New album, Live at Sweetwater Music Hall, out tomorrow

August 22, 2024August 23, 2024 Ron Hart 0 Comments 2024, Edith Miller, Janus, Live at Sweetwater Music Hall, Paula Boggs, Paula Boggs Band

The music Paula Boggs and her band creates has been called “Soulgrass” –a magical combination of soul music and Bluegrass with elements of jazz and Americana.

It’s a sound that earned this group big critical acclaim with the release of their 2022 studio LP Janus, a work hailed by No Depression, who proclaimed, “The storytelling on this record will pull you in, but it’s the musicianship that ultimately takes center stage, thanks to an elegant, groove-laden soundscape crafted by an all-star backing band.”

And on their excellent new album, Live at Sweetwater Music Hall, the PBB flex their sonic muscles on the famed concert stage in Mill Valley, CA, where they cut loose with a performance for the ages.

Boggs, who helped prosecute Oliver North in the Iran-Contra Affair, served as a high ranking executive for Dell and Starbucks and was an Obama-appointed member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities before resigning in defiance to Donald Trump in 2017, now focuses on her music full-time. And Live at Sweetwater Music Hall is no doubt a testament to the passion she possesses for her craft, not to mention the dynamic interplay between herself and her bandmates, including Tor Dietrichson on percussion, Alex Dyring on bass and vocals, Jacob Evans on drums, Darren Loucas on guitars, harmonica, and vocals, Paul Matthew Moore on keyboards and accordion, and guest artist Anton Patzner on fiddle and mandolin.

Paula Boggs Band Live at Sweetwater Music Hall, self-released 2024

The live album doesn’t come out until tomorrow, but Rock & Roll Globe has got an early taste of what to expect with the premiere of “Edith’s Coming Home,” which you can hear below.

“Researching for the song led me to Columbia University’s archives and an interview Edith Miller gave in the 1970s, but under terms she set, neither the transcript nor recording could be released until after her death,” Boggs explains of the song and its historic subject of one of New York’s first Black female judges. “Judge Miller suffered from Alzheimer’s at death and, in her waning years, struggled at times to recognize her children and other loved ones.

“But in the recordings, Edith Miller, likely then in her late 40s or early 50s, is vibrant, witty, and even tells a couple of color jokes. Brian Miller, our first bass player and her son, never knew about the interview until I told him about it. Brian told me the recording was an amazing gift, helping replace his last, more painful memories of his mom with this more vibrant and joyful example. You never know where a song will take you as a songwriter or the lives you may change because of it!”

Look out for Live at Sweetwater Music Hall tomorrow morning on all DSPs.