onurblues: The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band

March 14, 2022

The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band - Peyton On Patton (2011)

A big damn tribute to Charley Patton

Hey there ! Wanna have a half hour of musical jubilation ? Listen to this big damn homage album from Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band then !
Real name : Josh Peyton. Birth date : April 1981. Birth place : Eagletown, Indiana. The Rev is a big damn heavy bearded man built like a big damn lumberjack and equipped with such a big damn powerful baritone voice that it would frighten a bear. In fact, he is a big damn bear himself ! He's chopping hard on his steel slide guitar, helped by his washboard scratcher wife Breezy (they're married since 2003) and by the bare-hand barrel banger 'Cuz' Persinger.

In 2011, the Rev decided to pay his dues to his idol Charley Patton (who was supposedly born exactly 90 years before him in April 1891), one he considers as the true king father of the Delta blues, by recording eleven of his songs. But he does it his way ! You really have to hear it to understand what his way sounds like.
The album tracks were all recorded on the same day in the old way, as it was done in Patton's days, with just one microphone. It even offers three quite different versions of "Some of These Days I'll Be Gone", one of the Rev's favorite Patton's song.

According to the Rev, the initial project was to make an album exclusively composed of different versions of this same song ! Things apparently evolved in a slightly different way. As a tribute to Patton, the first song, "Jesus Is a Dying Bedmaker", was recorded inside the cotton gin of the legendary Dockery Farms plantation, a place often considered as being the birth place of Delta blues, mainly because Patton spent a good part of his life there, where he became the mentor of "Son" House and younger blues musicians like Robert Johnson or Howlin' Wolf, among others.

Let's make it clear : this is a 95% Rev Peyton album. His two accomplices are barely heard in the remote background. The first thing that strikes, as pointed out above, is the Rev's powerful vocal texture and his cockney-like singing that makes Patton's lyrics sometimes difficult to grab at first. The second thing is the old Irish-like folk sound sometimes given by the Rev to some songs, a characteristic that is absent in Patton's original recordings. This is particularly clear in "Some Of These Days I'll Be Gone", "Tom Rushen Blues" or "Some Happy Days". Nothing really surprising though because blues actually finds his roots in different folk styles brought by immigrants from European countries, among which Ireland has contributed with a quite important quota.
▼ The Bear at work.

Nevertheless this modern revisit of Patton, generally in a faster tempo, is a success. It probably led or will still lead many listeners to (re)discover the original work of the great blues pioneer that Charley Patton was.
From the gospel-styled classic "Jesus Is A Dying Bed Maker" to the jubilant version of  "Shake It And Break It", through the great cover of "Mississippi Boweavil Blues" (1) and the three version of "Some Of These Days I'll Be Gone", this throw-back tribute album is a treat for country blues aficionados and blues history fans. ■
(1) This traditional song is referring to the "boll weevil" (Anthonomus grandis), a beetle infesting cotton plants, that devastated US plantations in the 1920s, severely wrecking the cotton industry and subsequently ruining many sharecroppers and field workers who were forced to move up North to industrial cities like… Chicago where they exported the Delta blues.

The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band's web site : https://www.bigdamnband.com/

Their YT channel : https://www.youtube.com/user/bigdamnbandofficial/featured (with one video not to be missed of Rev. Peyton playing 18 different instruments (!) on the single song "John Henry" : https://youtu.be/GuuNm7Sb1WQ?list=PLXiQn6lC94c6YOvQrkDitwU5ZsdA8bPAq)

Some 30 live recordings free for download : https://archive.org/details/TheReverendPeytonsBigDamnBand?sort=creatorSorter

From the album "Peyton on Patton"

► At the Dockery Plantation in the Mississippi Delta :
→ "Jesus is a Dying Bed Maker" : https://youtu.be/N0py9GP7HKI
→ "Some Of These Days": https://youtu.be/mbb2ZiFpNP4
→ "Prayer of Death pt 1" : https://youtu.be/a9L8clY_9W8
► A 7-song playlist : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC58B0857EDD5B692

→ "Some of These Days I'll Be Gone (Patton version)"
→ "Some of These Days I'll Be Gone (Banjo version)"
→ "Shake It and Break It"
→ "Prayer of Death"
→ "Jesus Is A Dying Bedmaker"
→ "Elder Greene Blues"
→ "Mississippi Boweavil Blues"

Interview

► In "The Vinyl District" : https://www.thevinyldistrict.com/storefront/2014/04/reverend-peyton-tvd-interview/

King size live videos

► Live at Telluride Blues & Brews Festival 2019 (3 videos) : https://www.tellurideblues.com/news/the-reverend-peytons-big-damn-band-live-at-telluride-blues-brews-festival
► Live Steam Concert, May 2020 (1h03) : https://youtu.be/pcVDiV7qr8s
► At Asheville Music Hall 11-17-2017 (1h26) : https://youtu.be/aShG-kZwbww

► At Reggie's Rock Club in Chicago :
→ in 2014 (1h21) : https://youtu.be/ALbm3m8YwAo
→ in 2016 (1h38) : https://youtu.be/xjyq4RYA3Q4
► On New Year's Eve 2017 at The Bluebird (1h32) : https://youtu.be/WvO6bL5gqPo

► At Knuckleheads Saloon in Kansas City, Missouri :
→ in 2008 where a train came by to blow it's whistle during the encore of "That Train Song", (1h22) : https://youtu.be/1Z9JsYel2w0
→ in 2009 with the original drummer, Rev's brother Jayme Peyton, (1h38) : https://youtu.be/SuUTsz0qeBI
→ in 2010 with "Cuz" Persinger on drums(1h24) : https://youtu.be/ZFoA8j37AQs
→ in 2015 (1h26) : https://youtu.be/zZtwtDQhDZg

► At Butler Arts Fest in 2015 (1h34) : https://youtu.be/FTbobxsc6OA
► At Fitzgerald's American Music Festival in Berwyn, Illinois, on July 3, 2017 (1h30) : https://youtu.be/1I8EnQETGl0
► At the Cubby Bear in Chicago on April 6, 2013 (encore with special guest Jimbo Mathus) (1h26) : https://youtu.be/YA3xzeD8s_Q

Charley Patton and the Dockery plantation

The 25,600-acre (104 km2) cotton plantation Dockery Farms, between Cleveland and Ruleville, in the Mississippi Delta, was established in 1895 by Will Dockery. Its good reputation for treating his workers and sharecroppers fairly attracted workers from throughout the South. Some became settled sharecroppers working a portion of the land in return for a share of the crop, while others were itinerant workers.

▼ Around 1950.

Around 1900, there lived and worked about 2000 people, including blues musicians. In addition to its railroad terminal, Dockery Farms had its own money coins, its general store, post-office, school, doctor and churches. The workers’ quarters included boardinghouses, where they lived, socialized and played music, particularly guitar, which had been introduced to the area by Mexican workers in the 1890s.
Dockery Farms is widely regarded as the place where Delta blues music was born because musicians resident at Dockery included Charley Patton, Robert Johnson or Howlin' Wolf…

Charley Patton and his family are believed to have moved around 1900 to the Dockery Plantation, where he came under the influence of an older musician, Henry Sloan. In turn, Patton became the central figure of a group of blues musicians including Willie Brown, Tommy Johnson and Eddie "Son" House, who played around the local area. The plantation became known as a informal musical center. By the mid-1920s, the group widened to include a younger generation of musicians, including Robert Johnson, Chester "Howlin’ Wolf" Burnett, Roebuck "Pops" Staples or David "Honeyboy" Edwards. Some of these were itinerant workers, while others lived more permanently on the farms. (borrowed from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dockery_Plantation). ■