The jug, the kazoo and the early blues
August 11, 2022
Last Chance Jug Band - Shake That Thing ! (1997)
August 09, 2022
Steve James - American Primitive (1994)
The album's title, "American Primitive", announces what's on the menu : old times jug blues. James decided to devote a full record to a hundred years old style, when guitar had not yet totally taken advantage over banjo or to a lesser extent over mandolin. This voyage into the origins of country blues, and especially of the East-Coast Piedmont rag style famous for its complex guitar picking, is pure jubilation.
There's here a lot of things inherited from early rural folk tradition and even bluegrass. James' guitar is coupled to Danny Barnes' banjo and Rubin' stand-up bass reminds the times when a simple broomstick equiped with a single string attached to a washtub was used as a bass (remember the front cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Willy and the Poor Boys" ?). Primich' harmonica complete this 100% Texan line-up.
August 08, 2022
Update > Richard Ray Farrell - At Cambayá Club: Caleta Rock (2013) / Shoe Shoppin' Woman (2014) / Three Pints Of Gin (2020)
► Get the albums at the usual place...
The Bohemian bluesman
August 06, 2022
Kelly Joe Phelps - Tap The Red Cane Whirlwind (2004)
The late Kelly Joe Phelps disappeared last may 2022 after being affected for several years by a nerve disorder in his right arm, called "ulnar neuropathy", resulting in partial or total incapacity to use his right hand and preventing him to play. Of all, this rare disease had to fall on him, one of the most brilliant acoustic guitar players ! Did this tortured man commit suicide ? The rumor has circulated since the public announce of his death didn't mention any precise cause.
August 05, 2022
Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown - Blackjack (1977)
Gate, the old Texas swing crocodile
This album starts with "Here Am I", a swinging title carried by horns and showing his typical unusual finger attack on the strings of his fetish 1966 Gibson Firebird guitar. The following "Tippin' In" sees Don Buzard's pedal steel guitar coming in accompanied by an unusual flute (Bobby Campo). On the blues "Song For Renee (Gate's Tune)", Gate demonstrates his skills on violin while Rod Roddy's piano rolls down, along with Campo's flute again.
August 04, 2022
Blind Lemon Jefferson - That Black Snake Moan (2008)
Born in September 1893 in a small rural community around Streetman, Texas, near Wortham, about 120 km south east of Dallas, Lemon Henry Jefferson led the classic early life of many country bluesman at that time : learning to play guitar in his teens, playing at picnics, parties and other gatherings, later busking in Dallas, where he met and played with Leadbelly (before he went to jail) in the early 1920s. Though Leadbelly was the elder, he was impressed by BLJ's virtuosity on guitar and later wrote the tribute song "Blind Lemon's Blues". It is almost certain that BLJ traveled to the Mississippi Delta and Memphis, and probably further.
July 31, 2022
The Catch-back, vol. 2 : Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown - Buddy Flett - Snooky Pryor - Johnny Tucker & James Thomas - Doug MacLeod - William Clarke - Fiona Boyes
...some that deserved to be featured here...
Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown - Down South In The Bayou Country (1972-74 / 2006)
The ex-Deputy Sheriff's country dance
But wait ! when Gatemouth plays country & western, he does it his way, which is not anybody else way : he's cooking a gumbo made of swamp rock, cajun waltz, creole voodoo funk, New Orleans R'n'B, Texas square dance and other Southern music ingredients to come up with his personal Gate's style vision of country & western, from "Breaux Bridge Rag" to "Gate's Express" through "Loup Garou" and "Sheriff's Barbecue"...
July 27, 2022
Blind Blake - 1926-32 All the Published Sides (2003)
► Get the 5-CD box-set + bonus at the usual place...
In the gaps between these dates, his life is pretty much subject to conjectures. Even his real name remains a bit mysterious : some favor Phelps though Blake is most likely the right one. As for his Christian name, the most widely accepted by specialists is Arthur.
July 26, 2022
Update > Louisiana Red - Over My Head (1997) / I Hear The Train Coming (1997)
His mother died shortly after his birth, and his father was lynched by the Klan in 1937. He possibly spent several years in an orphanage in New Orleans (which could explain his nickname) before going to live with his grand-mother in Pittsburgh.
In the 1960s and 1970s he recorded a good amount of albums as Louisiana Red, and in 1981 he moved to Hanover in Germany where he spent the rest of his life. He died in 2012 at either almost 80 or 76 leaving behind him an impressive discography of over fifty albums.
July 25, 2022
Mississippi Fred McDowell - Live At The Gaslight (1971)
A rare mastery of the bottleneck, a very recognizable vocal texture perfectly accorded to the sound of his guitar, a long list of Mississippi blues that became classics… all the ingredients were gathered for a memorable concert in one of New York's Greenwich Village temples of the 1960s folk revival that has seen performing some of the greatest folk & blues artists of this period, from Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Dave Van Ronk to Bob Dylan, David Bromberg or Joni Mitchell, from Rev. Gary Davis and Mississippi John Hurt to Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Big Mama Thornton and a young Bonnie Raitt...