Betty Fox

In the year since her surprise appearance at the 2011 Tropical Heatwave, Betty Fox has managed to blow the roof off every important venue throughout Tampa and St. Pete. Now, she and her Dirty Bastards are poised to release their first CD, "Too Far Gone" which will feature original cuts like "Down", a thorough homage to Muddy Waters, and "Goodbye", a salsa-tinged chart that fuses everything from J. Buffet to Ada Brown. But soul is what it’s all about. In fact, first timers to a Fox show are often blissfully oblivious to whether the Dirty Bastards are belting out an accurate cover or one of their own charts. Fox and her boys roll forward, still appreciative and un-phased, confident in their chops. And over the Bastards’ solid, salty backbeats, between Josh Nelms’ articulate, even dogmatic guitar solos, Ms. Fox’s vocals have evolved to octaves that inspire. She has graduated from the churches of South Tampa and has become something more than a self-described 'chanteuse'--a humble moniker and certainly less than what any true critic would ascribe to her.
No, Betty Fox proves her melodious mettle when she often casts aside the microphone and sings to us anyway, easily felt and heard over the full power of her band mates. She’s that good.