Nienke Dingemans - Devil on My Shoulder (2021)

Nienke Dingemans is a Dutch singer-songwriter. She is seen as a 17-year-old bluestop talent, but her music is much broader: from blues to soul and from country to jazz.

Her great talent did not go unnoticed by musicians Jan van Bijnen and Joost Verbraak, both multi-instrumentalists and with tons of experience. By the way, I reviewed Endless Road by them together in the past and by Jan Modest Man this year. But Simon Keijzer also paid attention to this Ossendrecht talent in his podcast earlier this year and was also very impressed.

Jan and Joost jointly produced the debut EP Devil on My Shoulder with six of Nienke's own compositions. Nienke especially has a predilection for music from a distant past, including Nina Simone. She is mainly seen as a blues musician, but also feels senang in soul, country and jazz.

Opener Why the Caged Birds Sings has a subcutaneous tension and the accompaniment here is sober, only drums, bass, electric and resonator guitar. Especially the resonator guitar is in very safe hands with Jan. Less sober, but catchy and with a stomping rhythm is Heartache Train with Reyer Zwart on double bass.

About the first song Nienke wrote is the beautiful blues/swamp song Tennessee River, it already appeared as a single. The river here stands for the metaphor of the hope of achieving your goals, and especially the road you have to travel to achieve those goals. Nienke's texts are surprisingly mature and her English pronunciation is excellent, partly due to the extra Cambridge English lessons she takes at the VWO in Bergen op Zoom. Tennessee River is graced by the sax of Arend Bouwmeester, best known for his collaboration with Ralph de Jongh.

With Jan and Joost on board, a trip to New Orleans is almost inevitable. The result is the swinging Love Labors Love with Nienke herself on piano. Joost takes the song to an even higher level with his sousaphone, trumpet and trombone contributions. Quite sober is the most bluesy song on the album, Mississippi Road Blues, on which Nienke can also be heard on electric guitar.

Closing and title track Devil on My Shoulder is one of the highlights of this debut. Here Nienke shows her soulful side of her voice. Personally, I think her voice comes into its own here. In addition to the aforementioned guest musicians, Joris and Sanne Verbogt (Joost's partner) can also be heard on bass. Thanks in part to the excellent production of Jan and Joost, Devil on My Shoulder has become an impressive debut by the young singer-songwriter Nienke Dingemans. An extremely talented young lady, whom I will follow with great interest.