That doesn't always happen in this business. Those people at New West, that's not just a business.

That is so full circle for me to have my records back on the Antone's label, which I founded all those years ago. It felt like a good time, and we all dig Angela.'Ībout New West's catalog commitment, Strehli titters, 'That is the most fortunate, unexpected, unplanned thing, and it just tickles me. There seems to be a resurgence happening in real blues with newer artists like Marcus King, Christone Kingfish Ingram, and others. 'Angela's album hit at the heart of Antone's, and I loved her new music. 'From my start at New West, beyond reissuing catalog, I was looking for the right project at the right time to revive Antone's Records,' emails label President John Allen. The Nashville and Athens, Ga.-based imprint plans to re-press Lazy Lester's Blues Stop Knockin' and Doug Sahm's The Last Real Texas Blues Band from Antone's archival discography. Contemporary roots preservationists since 1998, New West not only puts out Ace of Blues on November 18, but also boasts more than 550 titles. Following the patriarch's death, the offshoot label declared bankruptcy and changed hands in a complex legal saga, finally ending in acquisition by New West Records in 2010. Seventy-seven this November 22, the University of Texas graduate, in fact, founded Austin's world famous Home of the Blues with Clifford Antone (1949-2006) and others, and later started Antone's Records. 'I wrote that verse about when some of those blues musicians would come to Antone's and they would try to remember my name with those three syllables. 'I was so happy to do that song, 'cause it has that edge to it, kind of a bravado,' offers Strehli. ' Cliff, Sue, Lou – Stevie and Jimmie, too/ But when Muddy, Otis, and Milton came down there to play/ It seemed that calling me 'Ace' was easier to say.' ' At Antone's down in Texas, my friends call me the queen,' ad-libs the cracking title track. Otis Rush's lowdown 'Gambler's Blues' and kerosene-licked howler 'Howlin' for My Darling' bristle 'n' burn. Willie Dixon's 'I Love the Life I Live' beams Waters' Buddha-esque sovereignty, while Strehli lends Chuck Berry's 'You Never Can Tell' an indelible snap. I answer to that.’” – Angela StrehliĬovering Strehli's core inspirations, the set list begins with a whirl through Bobby 'Blue' Bland's dance floor magnet, 'Two Steps From the Blues,' horn-smearing her stately vocal with a speakeasy ambience that touches off an intimate, after-hours electricity. “Some of those blues musicians would come to Antone’s and they would try to remember my name with those three syllables. I'm completely indebted to Susan, who's like a sister to me.' Those photos of me interacting with all those people, what a treasure. 'They back up everything I sang and all the music I chose. ' Susan Antone's photographs and the club's archives were instrumental in the new package,' affirms Strehli over FaceTime from her longtime Marin County homestead in Northern California. King interlocking as literal hermanos in arms. Jimmy Reed, Otis Rush, Eddie Taylor, and more decorate the wax wrapper inside, but the 10-page picture book bursts sound and vision: Strehli and Waters dancing Albert Collins and Buddy Guy sandwiching Strehli gal pals Etta James, Bonnie Raitt, and Sue Foley getting cozy Denny Freeman, Flaco Jiménez, and B.B. Flying V bomber Albert King, baby-faced gunslinger Stevie Ray Vaughan, and sanguine Fabulous Thunderbird Keith Ferguson reanimate all around her in a clutch of pupil-widening images.

Alongside it, Muddy Waters and a cowboy-hatted Junior Wells serenade the Texan at Antone's nightclub seven years later. Immediately inside, a black-and-white snapshot of the Lubbock-born beauty in three-quarter profile captures a resolved, inscrutable, fair-haired twentysomething from modern rock's first great age, 1968. Boutique packaging and a photo album insert disgorge an Austin-and-beyond visual history of true blues. Hot off our scarce world supply of record presses, the royal-blue-colored vinyl honks and stings and testifies the singer's first studio full-length in 17 years. Ace off duty: Angela Strehli (Photo by Paul Moore)Ĭrack open the gatefold sleeve to Angela Strehli's brand-new Ace of Blues, and her genre's ancient book of spells spills forth.

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