Deep Pockets

2021 release. Dana Gillespie's affair with the blues shows not the slightest sign of flagging. Deep Pockets, the follow-up to 2019's Under My Bed, is a collection of 12 Gillespie originals, mostly written with long-standing lead guitarist Jake Zaitz. It is a reflective album, born of Covid lockdown. Deep Pockets has arrived earlier than scheduled. After the first UK lockdown prompted a rush of industry from Dana and an album's worth of songs, she and her band flew off to play the Lugano Blues Festival. With a house on Lake Maggiore at their disposal and no way of knowing when the London studios might reopen or close again, recording impromptu suddenly seemed like a good idea. Everything you hear was captured in that dazzling summer setting over just four days, in either one or two takes; that's why the music has such a distinctive heat, zest and spontaneity. Nothing's been overworked or unduly titivated, and Dana's voice, unerring in it's pitch and as expressive as ever, is just how it sounds in a live show.