Dayna Kurtz “Beautiful Yesterday” (Munich Records 2004)

Available: Now.  Review by Michael Mee
7 out of 10

An album for all our yesterdays. New Jersey singer Dayna Kurtz has already opened shows for the likes of Ladysmith Black Mambazo (rather curiously) and B.B. King (altogether more understandable). All I can say is how brave of them. If she displays the same unyielding intensity on stage that she does on her album then the audience will surely not have had time to recover its senses in time for the 'headliner'. This a lady who should build in recovery time for her listeners, she is nothing short of a phenomenon. After a couple of what can safely be described as 'looseners' - Music Box and I Belong To The Wind are fine but it's what follows that defines them – Kurtz explodes into Love Where Did You Go, a searing slice of blues, accompanied by the kind of brass section rarely heard outside of a New Orleans funeral procession. It's hot, it's humid and the living is far from easy. Beautiful Yesterday is a dark and brooding collection that lives in the half-light. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than on the surprising but brilliant cover of Those Were The Days. It is impossible to connect Kurtz's lament for the death of lost moments, with the 'Laura Ashley' hymn of rosy nostalgia that Mary Hopkin gave us in the 60s. While her style may hark back to Bessie, Billie and Nina, the singer and her songs are of the here and now. Dayna Kurtz does not pull any punches on Beautiful Yesterday and the emotion is not wrapped up it's raw, it's bleeding and it's in your face. Amsterdam Crown is harsh and unforgiving but Dayna Kurtz reserves her real venom for the closing and title track. It takes the same basic idea of Those Were The Days and plunges it a few fathoms further into the blackness. If you think Nick Cave can be mean and moody then I suggest you listen to Dayna Kurtz. You will undoubtedly hear happier albums this year, it's doubtful you'll hear many that are better.