Music Review: EG Kight – ‘A New Day’

EG Kight is a brilliant singer and songwriter who has been nominated for numerous Blues Music and Blues Blast awards.  In 2013, she received the Georgia Music Legend award. Recently, she faced and overcame a life-threatening illness, coming down with both encephalitis and meningitis at the same time, and for a year after her recovery she was unable to write. Then her inspiration returned, and the result is a renewed energy on A New Day.

Kight either wrote or co-wrote all 10 songs on the album, including one, “Bad Times,” which is a duet with Greg Nagy and was co-written with Tom Horner and the late Ann Rabson, formerly of Saffire. She is backed by her touring band and joined by musical guests Tommy Talton, Randall Bramblett and Paul Hornsby as well as Nagy. Styles range from straight blues to ballads to gospel, all highlighted by that beautiful voice. Kight also co-produced the album with Hornsby, who is famous for working with groups like the Marshall Tucker Band and Charlie Daniels. Facing a serious health scare and overcoming it obviously inspired some of the best songs on the album, including “Holdin’ On,” the gospel-tinged “Don’t Give Up,” “Time to Move On,” and the title track.

Then there are the great straight blues numbers, like the aching “Comin’ Down with the Blues,” the humorously threatening “Graveyard Dead Blues,” where she lets her man know exactly what she expects and what he can expect, and the fantastic “Low Mileage Woman.” That tune reminds me of the sort of clever wordplay found in earlier songs like Ruth Brown’s “If I Can’t Sell It (I’m Gonna Sit Down on It).”  That one is my personal favorite and could easily become a classic women’s blues song.

The other songs on the album, while slightly less memorable, are still strong: the torch-y ballad, “Can’t Catch the Wind,” the blues rock party song, “Let’s Get Down,” and the contemporary ballad, “Misunderstood.”

Kight, who is sometimes known as “The Georgia Songbird,” certainly comes back strong with this project and starts off her “New Day” with a very bright dawn. You’ll be glad to spend time with this music for many days to come.

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