The Red Hot Mama (Gloria candens) was presumed to be extinct in 1966 with the passing of Sophie Tucker, who proclaimed herself the last of the breed. Fortunately, Nature (being a bit of a Red Hot Mama herself) abhors a vacuum and we are treated to an occasional specimen to cheer us and remind us that we are alive.
Randi Cee is a bona fide Red Hot Mama for the New Jazz Age, yet her incandescence is not the brush-fire growl of Ms. Tucker. There is more intense heat in depth and subtlety, and Any Kind of Man is geothermal. Ms. Cee doesn't sound like anyone but herself, but while listening to her EP CD I could not help but think of Elsie Carlisle, who covered risque blues numbers for the English market. Ms. Carlisle transmuted the bald innuendo of Lizzie Miles' “My Man o' War” into high vocal art with her intelligent and elegant interpretation of the lyric—with absolutely no decrease in temperature.
I feel similarly about Randi Cee's version of the title track. Victoria Spivey recorded “Any-Kind-a-Man” [sic] for Vocalion in Chicago on October 15, 1936 accompanied by New Orleans jazzmen Lee Collins, Arnett Nelson, John Lindsay, and J.H. “Mr. Freddie” Shayne. With all due respect to the originator (and the original), Ms. Cee nails it and surpasses it, à la Carlisle. It doesn't hurt a bit that she has the finest L.A. musicians on the session: John Reynolds on guitar, Kat
