Rhonda Funk - Ain't Your Mama (click on image to watch video)

 16  June 2021

Rhonda Funk puts her cards on the table within the first few verses of “Ain’t Your Mama,” the sultry title-track from her new six-song EP. The down home groover is powered by whipsaw guitar riffs, soulful B3 notes and a tick-tock beat. But it’s her authoritative  growl that grabs the listener’s attention; “Don’t go calling me sugar, sugar, cause I ain’t sweet on you, don’t go calling me baby, you got some growin’ up to do/I ain’t your darlin’ darlin,’ even though you think I am, an older woman like me don’t want a boy, she needs a man, I ain’t your momma!.”

  It only gets better from there. “I Could Get Used To It,” awash with sawing fiddles and rippling mandolin and stately piano, is a bit of a barn burner. Throwing caution to the wind for the pursuit of love she urgently insists “I’m a big girl and it’s my heart, and I think I want to see.” 

  The action slows on the on the tender and contemplative “More Than A Table.” Conversely, “Liar, Liar” takes a faithless lover to task with grit, grace and tenacity. She throws in a ringer here with her trenchant take on Bon Jovi’s Country-crossover, “Whole Lot Of Leavin,” but her own compositions are more compelling. The  EP closes with the propulsive Honky-Tonk Rock of “Cumberland Falls.”

Eleni P. Austin - I was born into a large, loud Greek family and spent my formative years in the Los Angeles enclaves of Laurel Canyon and Los Feliz. My mother moved us to the Palm Springs area just in time for puberty and Disco.  I have spent over 40 years working in record stores, starting back in High School.

I wrote music reviews for the Desert Sun from 1983 to 1988. I began doing the same for the Coachella Valley Weekly in 2012.

I live in Palm Springs with my wife and our amazing dog, Denver. 

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