Texas Music Magazine Reviews Water To Wine

The Spring 2009 issue of Texas Music Magazine just shipped to subscribers this week and should be arriving on your local newsstands any day now. Check out this fantastic review below from Editor, Richard Skanse, of Nakia’s debut album, Water To Wine. Pick up a copy today to read it and lots of other great reviews and stories!

Austin is stuffed to the gills with aspiring songwriters, but Nakia isn’t one of them. Sure, he can write a tune, but like Ruthie Foster and Malford Milligan, he’s first and foremost a gifted singer who just wants to sing the hell out of a great song. The soulful Alabama transplant wrote or co-wrote four songs on Water to Wine, including the rafter-shaking title track; but he really goes to town on the six contributions by Michael Fracasso — most notably on “There Goes the Neighborhood, ” a slyly phrased but searing comment on prejudices. Producer/guitarist Mac McNabb and a crack team of Austin’s best musicians keep the tracks tight and punchy, but it’s Nakia’s full- throated, gritty howl that lights this fire. Someday, Nakia’s vocal chops are going to be front and center as part of the next great supergroup to come out of Austin (a la the Arc Angels or Storyville). But until then, this one-name solo artist is doing just fine with a little help from his friends. — RICHARD SKANSE