Roberta Donnay & the Prohibition Mob Trio at Doc's Lab

Roberta Donnay is a Jazz Age preservationist, guardian of Depression-era sounds, and extender of traditions, but her music isn't covered with cobwebs or dated in any way. On Bathtub Gin, this singer-composer puts a new coat of paint on the songs of the '20s and '30s, contributes originals sympathetic to the sounds of those times, and conjures thoughts of life during prohibition.
- All About Jazz 2015


DOWNBEAT MAGAZINE 4 stars ****
Stylistic kind to flappers of the anything goes 1920s, Roberta Donnay has a silky, clean voice that is a small marvel of geniality, rarely dipping into touchy-feely cuteness. She's drawn to material from the canon of American songs recorded between the two world wars. So, on her fourth album, the San Francisco-based singer and arranger takes the measure of Bessie Smith's risque "Kitchen Man", the Boswell Sisters' finger-snapping "Put The Sun Back In The Sky", and bonbons associated with, among others, Josephine Baker, Peggy Lee and the unjustly obscure Annette Hanshaw. Donnay's sassy charm also envelopes her own retro-fun compositions, including the swing dance jamboree "Happy Feet". All the while, the well-groomed, jazz-inclined Prohibition Mob Band motors along spiritedly. – DownBeat 2015...

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Roberta Donnay is a Jazz Age preservationist, guardian of Depression-era sounds, and extender of traditions, but her music isn't covered with cobwebs or dated in any way. On Bathtub Gin, this singer-composer puts a new coat of paint on the songs of the '20s and '30s, contributes originals sympathetic to the sounds of those times, and conjures thoughts of life during prohibition.
- All About Jazz 2015


DOWNBEAT MAGAZINE 4 stars ****
Stylistic kind to flappers of the anything goes 1920s, Roberta Donnay has a silky, clean voice that is a small marvel of geniality, rarely dipping into touchy-feely cuteness. She's drawn to material from the canon of American songs recorded between the two world wars. So, on her fourth album, the San Francisco-based singer and arranger takes the measure of Bessie Smith's risque "Kitchen Man", the Boswell Sisters' finger-snapping "Put The Sun Back In The Sky", and bonbons associated with, among others, Josephine Baker, Peggy Lee and the unjustly obscure Annette Hanshaw. Donnay's sassy charm also envelopes her own retro-fun compositions, including the swing dance jamboree "Happy Feet". All the while, the well-groomed, jazz-inclined Prohibition Mob Band motors along spiritedly. – DownBeat 2015

With her singularly enticing sound, few contemporary vocalists are as well suited to dustily vintage material as jazz-blues stylist Roberta Donnay. She affectively proved so three years ago when, teamed with her Prohibition Mob Band, she surveyed standards from the 1920s and ’30s on the charming A Little Sugar. Now she’s back for more. – Jazz Times 2015

Vocalist Roberta Donnay turned the swank Bel Air nightclub into a Roaring 20s speakeasy as she brought back the music and moxie from the Golden Age of jazz with her Prohibition Mob. As she’s displayed on her two albums, Ms Donnay’s allegiance is to the easy and accessible two beat swing of Tin Pan Alley, the kind that Al Capone might have enjoyed after a night of going out with the boys. - Jazz Weekly May 12, 2015

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