Fire On The Floor – Beth Hart

The road to success hasn’t been easy for Beth Hart. It was her second album Screamin’ For My Supper, and particularly the single LA Song (Out Of This Town) that saw Beth score her first hit and subsequent inclusion on the soundtracks to a number of prime time television shows. At that time she was in her late 20’s and after a long history of substantial drug use since her teens that initial success exacerbated the problem leading to a stint in jail. Over the last 10 years or so Beth has not only put her life back on track, but her music just keeps getting better with each successive release. It’s been a divergent career resurgence too – aside form her solo efforts Beth has worked on a series of acclaimed collaborations with blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa as well.

I first became aware of Beth through her first collaboration with Bonamassa, the album Don’t Explain, a superb collection of blues standards, but it’s her last 2 solo outings that have impressed me more so – 2012’s Bang Bang Boom Boom (produced by Kevin “Caveman” Shirley) and last year’s Better Than Home, probably her most personal record to date and one loaded with the added emotional weight in the knowledge that one of the record’s producers Michael Stevens was dying with cancer during those sessions.

Beth’s new album Fire On The Floor won’t be released until October and the advance word is that this album is dynamite. Beth says the title track is about “when someone you know is bad for you, but you can’t help it”, and when a woman who has lived a life filled with so much personal hardship delivers a song with one of the most powerful, soul-drenched voices alive you know that she not only implicitly understands that situation, but can deliver it with more conviction than just about anyone.