Sara Lee
Make It Beautiful
Righteous Babe
Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records has been putting out her music for years. Recently, she has begun to release other artists on the label. Previous releases have been spoken word, but now DiFranco has chosen to release the first solo album from her bassist, Sara Lee. Sara Lee, who has played with numerous other bands (including the B-52s and the Indigo Girls), has always been a potent and innovative bass player, and she has created an album that, while technical lovely, seems to lack the personality to make it really stick. Sara Lee’s thin vocal range affects several of the songs, since she simply cannot pull off the songs co-written by a number of people, including DiFranco and Emily Sailers. Although I’m certain Make It Beautiful was a labor of love and features a number of tantalizing ingredients, it just didn’t cook.