Lauren Daigle is a great Soul singer foremost. She is a leading light in inspirational, testifying Christian Pop music.
Her background speaks of music in the blood. She was born in Lake Charles Louisiana and raised in Lafayette.
That’s Cajun and Zydeco country interwoven with a healthy dose of the Blues. Daigle is a familiar patois French surname.
A style of music as distinctive as Bluegrass, which also borrows heavily from black music.
The defining point of her teenage years was suffering from cytomegalovirus at age 15. In the two years needed to recuperate, she took voice lessons and set herself on a music career.
Led the choir at the Louisiana State University. She also auditioned for American Idol in 2010 and 2012. Whilst not making the final cut, she was getting noticed.
There have been Grammy and Billboard music awards to follow.
There is an expectant buzz amongst the large audience tonight which has a true family atmosphere. This is my first acquaintance with the artist. Listening to her recorded music and immediately her voice is familiar as Soul and Gospel.
Opening song Ego. The band is slick and smooth, very much like a New Orleans revue. A horn section of saxophone, trumpet and trombone. They can grandstand like soloists behind the JBs.
New and Look Up Child. This is the smooth sound of Seventies Soul. Daigle does have the vocal chops of a Lady Gaga. There is a slight whiff of Jazz. Far more in the feelgood Pop direction.
Trust In You has some of the Pop with horns style of the early Chicago. (That’s the band).
Hold On to Me was inspired by the covid times. Daigle mentions that she was here in early 2020, quite ill with a flu which turned out to be the lockdown virus.
A Jazz trumpet intro leads into a Gospel testifying song, and ultimately a yearning for redemption.
That mood of the darkest hour just before the light of dawn continues with Rescue, Be OK and These Are the Days. The rhythm section bass and drums can swing and uplift.
Still Rolling Stones is Gospel Pop at the level of the great Valentinos. The original Womack Brothers and the Sam Cooke-produced material.
Rock’n’roll is basically Gospel and Rhythm’ n’ Blues said Elvis.
This is the white kid from a poor Southern family who snuck into the black Baptist churches and was mad for the white Pentecostal church revival marquees.
The evolution of that music can be traced through to the Rolling Stones and AC-DC.
Gimmie Shelter is all hellfire, brimstone and redemption. So is Hell’s Bells.
Daigle is a committed evangelist Christian musician without any trace of irony. Her show reflects a large part of Americana.
Anybody that is interested can listen to the Original Carter Family and hear the same honest emotion and spiritual mysticism which made them the foundation stone of American music.
The show ends with an extended prayer.
Daigle starts by addressing the high youth suicide rate in this country. Why would this be in a country which many visiting artists praise as an idyllic paradise?
The cycle begins with O’Lord and keeps drafting other songs in. Horns play mournful codas. Love is like a hurricane. Laments and benedictions.
Van Morrison used to do similar things with his great Caldonia Soul Orchestra band. It’s across Astral Weeks through to Beautiful Vision. The Byrds and Dylan had similar periods.
It may go on a little too long, but most were on their feet, some with arms outstretched.
Lauren Daigle and her great band deliver Christian Americana.
Rev. Orange Peel
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