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Laura Love<\/a> is the kind of performer who doesn\u2019t readily fit into any one category. Her songs have elements of folk, funk, pop, blues; Love has called\u00a0 her style \u201cAfro-Celtic.\u201d Her albums feature everything from a Nirvana cover to the ballad \u201cWayfaring Stranger\u201d to \u201cAmazing Grace.\u201d She was a member of the satiric feminist band Venus Envy<\/a>; her 2018 album She Loved Red<\/a><\/em> was a searing depiction of recovering from personal loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When COVID hit, Love went into semi-retirement, \u201cfeeling satisfied that I\u2019d said and done all I needed to say and do<\/a>.\u201d Then came the insurrection of January 6th, 2021, which galvanized Love into new musical action: Uppity<\/em> is the result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The acoustic sounds (dobro, banjo, harmonica) provide a deceptively mellow backdrop for an album that\u2019s a powerful, stirring indictment of racial injustice. \u201cYou make me feel like a Nat Turner woman,\u201d is Love\u2019s jesting response to the white rioters she saw overwhelming the Capitol last January in \u201cThe Heart of Nat Turner.\u201d In \u201c23 and Me\u201d she explores her own mixed-race history, as seen through the eyes of a young slave woman. The pain of dealing with \u201csexism, racism, and all the other isms that keep me up at night\u201d runs deep. In \u201cGentle,\u201d Love sadly admits, \u201cI just don\u2019t know how to mend; \u201cIt\u2019s gonna take a long time for us to be fine\u201d is the similar sentiment in \u201cTo Be Fine.\u201d But there\u2019s hope as well, in the uplifting \u201cBayou,\u201d and a wonderfully freewheeling duet with Ruthie Foster on a cover of the Beatles\u2019 \u201cTwo of Us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n