Lone Wolf, Jessica Lee Wilkes' debut recording as a solo artist, offers not the slightest hint of doubt. Its five tracks are a 12-minute blast of full-throated, deep-groove 1950s-style rock, with the bassist/singer/songwriter belting in an unvarnished, brassy voice that sounds wholly natural.
Listening to the new EP, it's hard to believe that Wilkes - who will perform at RIBCO on August 11 - questioned herself a lot. She spent the past half-decade playing and singing in J.D. Wilkes & the Dirt Daubers, but - unlike her music-biz-vet husband (the leader of the aforementioned band) - she's relatively new to performing and recording.
Making her introduction to the world in such an abbreviated form, she said in a recent phone interview, was partly a function of money, but it was also an acknowledgment of inexperience. She had plenty of songs for a longer recording, but she didn't want to get in over her head.
"I wanted to see if I could do it at all," she said. "This was sort of like my first little test run ... , a way to get my feet wet and try to see what I'm capable of as an independent artist."