Spearman Brewers - Won't You Come Go With Me (2013)

►The album

Won't you go for another beer ?

En route for a journey through the past with this all-acoustic multi-instrumentalist duo that throws us back to early twentieth century beer joints music ! They baptized themselves with the odd name of Spearman Brewers, a name that calls for familiar memories in their area though : until it closed down in 1964, the Spearman Brewing Company, was a famous beer maker set in Pensacola (nothing to do with coca or pepsi !), on the gulf coast of western Florida, close to the Alabama state line. A region known as the Florida Panhandle that hasn't much to do with the usual coconut trees and translucent waters image of Miami beaches, the Florida Keys and the Caribbean sea, and rather announces the wet lands and bayous of the coast of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

The Spearman Brewers ― Scott Riggs and Jeremy Holcombe ― play, as they call it, "undistilled Panhandle Blues", a "new old stuff" blending different styles.  According to Scott Riggs, interviewed just before the 2018 International Blues Challenge, "Panhandle Blues is a gumbo of sorts. Having listened to a bunch of Piedmont, Delta and Country Blues, it seemed natural to mix them together. Throw in some traditional jazz, gospel, cajun, hokum and jug band and you’ve got what we call Panhandle Blues."

This first album, released in 2013 (they had five out since), might sound like a booze drinking music affair with songs like "Bottle Of Red" or "Get Your Liquor On", or like a sex matter one with songs like "Pay For The Pleasure" or "That Jelly Won't Roll No More", but it's more than that, most of all a modern tribute to old-time American southern popular music and its rich history. "If these guys were anymore "rootsy", you could cultivate them !", wrote a musical writer.

Grand brew-master Scott Riggs plays slide guitar (regular or resonator), mandolin and ukulele, and sings with a nasal voice while Jeremy Holcombe's upright bass is keeping the beat unperturbed, and his interventions on baritone or soprano ukulele underline the original oldie sound of the songs. The music gently swings from track to track while the lyrics seem to be rolling around Riggs tongue like a gum before being uttered, and the mandolin and ukuleles add to this "unfiltered" music a special flavor, not so often found in blues.
An album to listen while savoring with a bottle of cold beer indeed...

 The Spearman Brewing Company (1934-1964) 
→ https://www.pensapedia.com/wiki/Spearman_Brewing_Company
→ https://www.uniquehistoryofpensacola.com/post/pensacola-s-spearman-s-brewery-1935

Spearman Brewers on the Web
→ http://spearmanbrewers.com/index.html
→ https://www.facebook.com/SpearmanBrewers

Interview
► Scott Riggs in 2018  on the 850 ME site : https://wp.me/p1hzLt-1b0

Videos

► Spearman Brewers Panhandle Thursdays : https://www.youtube.com/user/YouRiggs/featured
► At Straight 8 Half Hour Happy Hour, in 2016 : https://youtu.be/dEhYw0fUXLI 

Setlist (35mn) : Straight 8 Stomp Intro, Knock 'Em Back, Get Your Liquor On, The Bottle Is My Home, The Street Where You Got Your Feet, Come What May,  Leave Your Lamplight On, No Matter What She Charges, Straight 8 Stomp Outro.
► Scott Riggs on mandolin on Bukka White's "Black Train Blues" : https://youtu.be/BtoEON1pzfk
► Live at Two Wheelers in Pensacola, in July 2013 :
→ "That Jelly Won't Roll No More" : https://youtu.be/0ELtTZwLTiw
→ Cab Calloway's "Minnie The Moocher" : https://youtu.be/R-h50hN1p-E
→ "Nothing Shakin' In This Town" : https://youtu.be/ofyd_W9ojk0 

►"Nothing To It But To Do It" in New World Landing, in 2016 : https://youtu.be/zWwGEx9BE-M
► Rising Tide" at the Imogene Theatre, in 2016 (featuring dobro and baritone ukulele) : https://youtu.be/KjQvcjbIOKk
► At the Stage Northside, in 2016 :
→ "Nothing To It But To Do It" : https://youtu.be/MpngEYmM7G4
→ "Close Down The Liquor Store" : https://youtu.be/Y1_Q4gHWo-E
► "Knock 'Em Back" live at the 2016 Pensacola Beach Songwriters Festival : https://youtu.be/lmTHJlzgAA8
► At Music Helps Concert : https://youtu.be/pSx97KN5EH0
► At the Daytona Blues Fest in 2017 : https://youtu.be/dqC_Ns-k78Q
► "Don’t mind if I do" at Shred In The Shed in Pensacola, in 2019 : https://youtu.be/BB5o0gIywG8

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