Then comes the title track, which requires no explanation. It represents, as Ball says in an introduction to the song on video, the "three things I love." Don't we all?
There's also a slightly gothic piece, "Miracle in Knoxville," penned solely by Ms. Ball. It's about religion and revival and the devil intervening in, and causing, an evangelist's death. It's sardonic and subversive—whacking a little chink off our typical notions of religious fervor.
Especially notable is Ball's song "Where Do You Go," co-written with Tracy Nelson, about not only Katrina but also its devastations, which persist some three year later—homelessness and poverty and abject loss that can never be reclaimed. Where do you go, indeed?
Then along comes Dr. John and lament pursues a different path: "I'll never be free of your smile so tender/The sweet surrender in your eyes/How can I be free/When I still remember how you thrill me with a sigh?" Then Dr. John: "Each kiss I gave to you/Made me a slave to you."
If you want to hear what blues piano is all about, it's right here in "I'll Never Be Free." Listen carefully and you may never be free of Ms Ball's brand of woozy and dolorous electric piano blues: Saturday night blues when you pull someone close, clutch for a slow dance, smell their sweat and seduction, and have no idea about tomorrow or anything but that particular moment and what you feel and what you suspect will never last because how could it?
To close things out Ball covers Bill Withers' "I Wish You Well." It's a sort of "Forever Young" for lovers and friends and family. Its vibe is blues-gospel and it elevates Peace, Love & BBQ to the sublime.
Peace, Love & BBQ was produced, elegantly and light-handedly, by Stephen Bruton, who has worked with the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Willie Nelson, and Patty Loveless—a trinity Marcia Ball certainly belongs among
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