While you can say that Clara Rae certainly builds her music on a platform of classic sounds and styles, there is certainly nothing retrospective or deliberately nostalgic about the music that she makes.
“Distract Me Baby” finds her in that pre-pop era, where refined blues, sophisticated jazz, and emotive soul all come together, reminding us of many of the iconic performers of the ’50s and ’60s. Still, her sound is less a look to the past than a carrying of a torch for such times into the present.
She possesses all the same deftness and finesse, the delicacy and poise, something sadly lacking in most of today’s music, but this is less a reminder of what we once had and more a statement of what we could have again.
As the guitars run out spacious blues licks and brass breezes through the background, as the organ swells and drops and the drums beat out a staccato groove, as her exquisite vocals are cocooned in gorgeous gospel-infused voices, we find ourselves not sad for what we have lost but rejoicing that it is being revived for a modern audience.
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