Following her magnificent love letter to New Orleans (2015’s Dee Dee’s Feather’s), the inimitable NEA Jazz Master, vocalist, producer and broadcaster Dee Dee Bridgewater returns with yet another homage, this time to her birthplace of Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis… Yes, I’m Ready is both a touching and evocative collection from the Grammy and Tony Award-winning jazz legend, reimagining a hand-picked set of blues, R&B and soul classics and effortlessly making them her own. Recorded at the historic Royal Studios, and co-produced by her close friend and Memphis native Kirk Whalum, Bridgewater pours her heart and soul into the 12-track collection. The tracklist ranges from the soulful opener ‘Yes, I’m Ready’, with sublime backing vocals from Candise Rayborn-Marshall and the Stax Music Academy, and the temperature-raising ‘I Can’t Get Next To You’, to the slinky blues of ‘Going Down Slow’ and ‘B-A-B-Y’, the 1960s hit for the Queen of Memphis Soul, Carla Thomas. Sung by Mahalia Jackson at Dr Martin Luther King’s funeral, Thomas Dorsey’s oft-recorded gospel anthem ‘Take My Hand, Precious Lord’ brings the album to a moving conclusion.