Lady Geraldine's story is as head-spinning as it is inspiring: born profoundly deaf, she battled through a school which refused to aknowledge her handicap and a marriage in which she was mentally and physically abused; she has worked variously as an oil painter, doll's hospital founder and jewellery merchant. She has now turned her hand to music, despite only having 30% hearing after a life-changing operation in her early 20s.  

 

Little Miss Blue sees her producing a very mature-sounding rock album, backed by some of Scotland's premiere session musicians. Is it good? I'm not sure. It's definately focussed, so avoids the sympathy-seeking piano ballads and insteads treads soft rock paths, squealing guitars marrying with Lady Geraldine's, um, squealing vocals. That it exists at all is a triumph; that almost no-one will hear it a modest tragedy.

 

In years to come, it's likely to become one of those albums poured over by musicologists, analysing the strange genesis and even more bizarre evolution of an album that was never meant to happen.