Ally Venable

Money & Power

Ruf Records

Ally Marie Venable is a twenty-five year old American blues rock guitarist, singer and songwriter. She is the 2014, and 2015 ETX (Texas Music and Radio Awards) female guitar player of the year. She and her band were also the ETX Music Awards blues band of the year in both 2015, and 2016. Venable was just 14 when she released her 2013 debut EP “Wise Man” which earned her a reputation as a rising star in the Lone Star State’s blues community. Venable’s album “No Glass Shoes” with Connor Ray Music finished at number 16 in the 2016 Roots Music Report’s Electric Blues Charts. Touted as a must-see act for under-30-year-olds by American Blues Scene, her follow-up debuted at number 7 in the Billboard Blues Album Chart. Her album “Texas Honey” was released in 2019. That same year Venable was a third of Ruf Records Blues Caravan, with Finalnd’s Ina Forsman and the Serbian Katarina Pejak. Other albums on Ruf Records include 2021’s “Heart of Fire” and 2023’s “Real Gone”. “Money & Power” is Venable’s sixth album for Ruf Records.

All of the songs on “Money & Power” were recorded at the Soundstage Studios in Nashville. Six were co-written by Venable with producer Tom Hambridge, and his co-writer Richard Fleming. Four more were written by Venable and Hambridge, one by her alone, and also included is one cover. The band features Venable, lead guitar and vocals; Hambridge, drums and percussion; keyboardists Ed Bedford, Luke Mosley, and Tim Lauer; the horn section of Jason Grant, trumpet; and Jorian Dawson, saxophone; and backing vocalists Rachel and Sarah Hambridge.

The opening track features Venable as she sings “my own brown liquor keeps me satisfied, sometimes I get lucky”, with a stinging guitar solo from special guest Christone “Kingfish” Ingram. “Maybe Someday” is a beautiful, soulful ballad with the horns “maybe not today, not tomorrow, but maybe someday”. On the title track “Money & Power”, written solely by Venable, she shouts “don’t you doubt her, she’s got that money & power”.

On “Do You Cry” Venable chimes “emotions are high, patience is low, do you cry?…a broken down feeling…I’d rather feel something than nothin’ at all”. “Heal Me” with more thunderous guitar from Venable as she sings “no one left around…I don’t know what I’ll find, I can feel me, my pulse beating, heal me”. “Stopper Back Papa” has a ska or rock-steady beat “it’s enough for me…in my head I can’t find one, tomorrow I’ll be free, ’cause that’s enough for me”.

“Legends” Venable groans, “you do not break on the other side…chasin’ my dreams ’cause I’m alive”. On “Keep Me In Mind” Venable chants, “if you want to, I’ll be back…if there’s a time you need someone to stand by your side, I’ll be back, I’ll be there in a heartbeat, just say the word, I’ll be there, just keep me in mind”.

“Unbreakable”, featuring Shemekia Copeland, includes the lyric “the story unfolds…in a world so cold, unbreakable and bold, she’s a survivor, head held higher…unbreakable and bold”. On “Stepping Stone” Venable belts “I’m not your stepping stone oh, oh, oh… I’m looking for something better, oh, oh, oh, I’m not your stepping stone”. “Feel That Sting” Venable chirps “I’m crying…I feel that sting…I feel that sting, deep in my soul…I feel that pain…running through my veins, I feel that pain”. The closer, a cover from Janet Jackson, Venable croons, “all the lonely nights I spend alone, never round to love me, you’re always gone…all the time you’re telling me lies…so full of promises that you never keep…all the time you’re telling me lies”.

“Money & Power” is a modern blues roots record that plays by it’s own rules. Venable explains that it shouts to the masses “that women are not to be doubted in their ability to thrive in the world. With a cover photo that depicts Venable at her luxurious desk smoking a cigar with her red boots high up on the desk. It’s a sonic embodiment of a woman’s ambition, and it showcases her songwriting and musicality on all fronts. She is unstoppable.

Richard Ludmerer
Contributing Editor/Making A Scene

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