Eden Brent: Ain’t Got No Troubles

Having been compared to everyone from Bessie Smith to Dinah Washington to Diana Krall, Mississippi blues mama Eden Brent summons them all, and more, on her second album, recorded in New Orleans with some local heavyweights swinging and swaggering behind her. Eight of the dozen songs are Brent originals, and she so owns Will Kimbrough’s touching saloon ballad “Goodnight Moon” that it might as well be hers. Writing is one thing; the soulful singing is something else again. Consider the resolve her voice projects in the gospel-tinged “Beyond My Broken Dreams,” in which the detritus of a failed romance can’t diminish the certainty of “a new day dawning” in her love life, her voice radiating triumph as producer Colin Linden’s howling slide guitar emphasizes the point. On the devastating southern soul ballad, “Leave Me Alone,” an anguished, heartbroken contemplation of love gone awry, Brent’s keening, horn- like reading is backed by a gospel organ, meditative piano, stinging electric guitar, and soothing, swooning horn section. Linden keeps the sonics loose and free flowing across the channels, with the artist clean and clear out front working her considerable magic with mood and attitude. Verily, Eden Brent has arrived.