Best Blues Albums 2022

So much good music during this past year, that it’s hard to choose. You’ll have your own favourites, but here are ours – which include one or two I suspect you’ll not be familiar with, but will repay investigation. Blues from women, from men, from the US, the UK, Europe, Asia – the blues really is a world-wide phenomenon. (We’ve not ranked them – they’re all great).

Elles Bailey, Shining in the Half Light

UK Blues Award winner’s Bailey’s third studio album of soulful and passionate blues. She’s a remarkable talent, and here delivers ten songs that highlight just how good her powerful, but beautifully controlled voice is. If you’re not familiar with Ms. Bailey, put that right, right now with this album.

Rory Block, Ain’t Nobody Worried

Seven times Blues Award winner and acoustic blues maestro Rory Block delivers the third in her series of albums, Power Women of the Blues, celebrating great women of the genre. [check out Prove it on Me and A Woman’s Soul]. It’s not really a blues album and is a departure from her usual offering of just Rory and acoustic guitar. The songs feature some vocal and instrumental accompaniment which gives her the opportunity to focus on the vocal performance on a set of songs from the 1960s to 80s by people like Bonnies Raitt, Carole King and Tracy Chapman.

Catfish Keith, Still I Long to Roam

Catfish Keith, guitarist and exponent of the blues extraordinaire, continues to delight and entertain us in his new album, his 21^st, Still I Long to Roam. It’s another fine collection of reinterpreted classic blues songs and originals, the latter sounding every bit as classic and authentic as the others. If you love blues music, if you love superb guitar playing, if you love hearing old songs brought to life through fresh interpretations, then this is an album you must hear. And all this infused with the usual infectious Catfish Keith sense of fun and joy. [Full review here]

Shemekia Copeland, Done Come Too Far

Daughter of Texas guitar-slinger, Johnny Copeland, continues where she left off with 2020’s Uncivil War with a top-notch, hard-hitting blues album that addresses contemporary issues like racism, child abuse, and guns and the historic legacy of slavery. A powerful set of songs and performances from Ms. Copeland and featuring guests Sonny Landreth and Cedric Burnside on guitar, and Charles Hodges on keyboards, amongst others.

Eric Gales, Crown

This is a remarkable piece of work from the talented Eric Gales, stretching the boundaries of blues rock and setting a new standard for the genre. The musicianship and arrangements serve the strength of the song-writing perfectly, Gales’s singing is versatile and powerful and, of course, as you’d expect, his guitar work is all you’d want from one of the world’s great electric guitar players. [Full review here]

Buddy Guy, The Blues Don’t Lie

At 86, Guy still has what it takes, his blistering guitar work, vocal power and…just his attitude, all undimmed. Just check out the opening track, I Let My Guitar Do the Talking, traditional, modern, gut-wrenching blues. You’re sucked in from the get go. With guest appearances by Mavis Staples, James Taylor, Bobby Rush, Jason Isbell, Wendy Moten and Elvis Costello, this is a stormer of a blues album. And with 16 tracks and over an hour’s worth of music, it’s value for money!

Katie Henry, On My Way

Stylish album of bluesy Americana from the very talented New Jersey native Katie Henry. There’s nice variety in the songs, from the blues of the opening song to more jazzy or country-tinged numbers. Ms. Henry is a terrific and versatile vocalist and a talented pianist and guitarist to boot.

Son House, Forever On My Mind

Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound label is restoring and releasing Dick Waterman’s archived tape collection of Delta blues artists, and this collection of Son House songs, Forever on My Mind is the first instalment. The sound quality on the album is great and it contains eight classic House songs, including Preachin’ Blues, Death Letter, Pony Blues and Levee Camp Moan. [Full review here]

The Jujubes

Raging Moon has all the ingredients of a top-notch blues record – killer slide guitar, echoes of Robert Johnson, tasty acoustic blue guitar licks and the rasping, world-weary vocals of Nikki Brooks. If cool, traditional sounding blues, with a modern edge is your thing – which I’m guessing if you’re reading this, it is, then you gotta check out the Jujubes. [Full review here]

Larkin Poe, Blood Harmony

The  Georgia-born multi-instrumentalist sisters, Rebecca and Megan Lovell, deliver another sterling blues rock/roots album, featuring what is becoming a very recognizable sound, and yet one that is fresh and vibrant. Their soulful vocals are exceptional, their guitar chops formidable, and the song-writing strong. One not to miss.

Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder, Get On Board

Mahal and Cooder’s set of Terry and McGhee songs tries to recreate something of the rawness of the blues recordings of yesteryear, and it has the feeling of two old friends thoroughly enjoying themselves. Taj Mahal said, “There are basic things in our culture that connect us, that allow us to be able to reach back and connect to a history of people, the things that nourish us as a people, and music, this music is one of those things.” In Get on Board, Mahal and Cooder reach back and connect to a part of blues history, helping to make sure it is not forgotten. [Full review here]

Dom Martin, A Savage Life

Dom Martin’s new album, A Savage Life, sees him fulfil the potential that his acclaimed 2019 album, Spain to Italy, pointed to. Martin is a multiple UK and European Blues Award winner who seems equally at home playing the acoustic blues of Blind Blake and the blues-rock of Rory Gallagher. Add to that his expressive vocals, and you have in Dom Martin the real deal. His guitar work and vocals throughout are stellar and the arrangements and musicianship from the rest of the band, are excellent. [Full review here]

Keb’ Mo’, Good to be Home

Another fine and hugely enjoyable album from Keb’ Mo’. It’s not exactly the blues, but – hey, it’s Keb’ Mo’! It’s feel-good stuff all the way, Sunny and Warm, the third song, describing things perfectly. Mr Mo’ is joined for good measure by Darius Rucker, the Old Crow Medicine Show and Kristin Chenoweth. Good Strong Woman continues Keb’ Mo’s recent affirmation of women, as opposed to the sexist lyrics often heard in the blues.

Miko Marks and the Resurrectors, Feel Like Going Home

A glorious mix of gospel and blues. They are all strong songs, both lyrically and musically, with arrangements that make you want to listen to them again and again. Ms. Marks’ vocal performance excels – controlled power, bluesy, with hint of a rasp here and there. [Full review here]

John Mayall, The Sun is Shining Down

You expect a John Mayall album to be good and this one doesn’t disappoint. 89-year-old Mayall is joined by a number of guests, including Marcus King, Buddy Miller, Scarlett Rivera in eight covers and two originals. It’s top-notch, modern blues rock, and you’ve got to hand it to John Mayall – for 60 years he’s been leading the charge with the blues and The Sun is Shining Down shows no sign of waning performance

Charlie Musselwhite, Mississippi Son

Fourteen mostly original songs from the 78-year-old veteran bluesman, Musselwhite, who plays guitar and harmonica and handles the vocals throughout. Songs like In Your Darkest Hour and Rank Strangers are perfect front-porch blues, with Musselwhite’s searching harp and raw vocals. Mississippi Son puts you right back in the heat and sweat of Musselwhite’s home state and bears testimony to the man’s lifetime in the blues. [Full review here]

Fabrizio Poggi, Basement Blues

Italian blues harp master, Fabrizio Poggi, delivers an outstanding set of covers of classic blues songs and some originals. There’s a dash of gospel too, with Precious Lord, John the Revelator and Up Above My Head. It’s all delivered with great sensitivity to the tradition and superb musicianship by Fabrizio and his collaborators which include Guy Davis, Ronnie Earl, Garth Hudson (who played with The Band) and guitarist Enrico Polverari.

Prakash Slim, Country Blues

Acoustic country blues – from Nepal? Really, you say? Yes, really. And fine stuff it is too. Prakash Slim is a fine guitarist, adept at finger-picking and slide techniques and an accomplished singer. The blues are alive and well in the shadow of the Himalayas. [Full review here]

Bonnie Raitt, Just Like That…

Her first album in six years, it’s all you’d want from a Bonnie Raitt album. Cool songs, Raitt’s characteristic slide guitar and her ever soulful vocals. The ten songs are strong, narrative-based, and well-arranged, and Raitt, now in her eighth decade delivers a classy performance throughout. The title track is a wonderful treat, pretty much just Raitt picking her acoustic guitar and singing plaintively.

Mavis Staples & Levon Helm, Carry Me Home

Carry Me Home is something of a masterpiece, it would not be too bold to suggest, a celebration of friendship, mutual admiration and faith. You can’t help but be moved by both the poignancy of the selection of songs and the pair’s performances, now knowing that Helm was to pass shortly after and that Staples is now in her 83^rd year. It’s simply a great set of songs, a wonderful collection of blues, gospel and Americana. [Full review here]

The 219, Revelator

Revelator is just a rare treat of a blues album. New Irish band The 219 delves deep into the blues tradition, with thirteen original songs, and echoes of biblical apocalypse in songs like Abandon Hope, All Kinds of Evil and the title track. Revelator. The musicianship is top-notch, the songs are all strong, and the arrangements just work. [Full review here]

Walter Trout, Ride

Blues rock at its finest. That’s what you always get with Walter Trout. Add to that his exquisite and emotive guitar soloing and any new album from this guitar maestro is to be savoured. The music is joyous – take the solos from the title track, for example – fast and furious as you might expect, but gloriously upbeat. And the lyrics are thoughtful, addressing issues in the wider world as well as facing Trout’s own past and present. This really is one of the best blues albums of the year. [Full review here]

Cristina Vane, Make Myself Again

Cristine Vane is a quite wonderful talent – a skilful guitar picker and slide player, a fine songwriter and a beautiful singer. It’s the sign of a talented songwriter and musician to give a traditional feel to a song, and yet have it feel bang up to date. Vane says she’s “essentially a rock kid who is obsessed with old music.” And that’s a winning combination. This is a top class album of 13 well-crafted songs, blessed by Vane’s silky vocals and guitar chops.

Edgar Winter, Brother Johnny

Several years in the making, Brother Johnny is a labour of love, a warm tribute by Edgar Winter to his brother, who passed away aged 70 in 2014. Brother Johnny features a star-studded cast of musicians, including Keb’ Mo’, Ringo Starr, Joe Bonamassa, Robben Ford, Warren Hayes, Billy Gibson, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. With 17 tracks and clocking in at 76 minutes, it’s a huge treat of an album and a fine tribute to one of the giants of blues rock. [Full review here]

Someone tell Bob Dylan, the times, they are a-changin’.

The Philosophy of Modern Song, Bob Dylan, Simon & Schuster

I’ve been a Dylan fan for over fifty years, have seen him in concert on numerous occasions, including that memorable night in London’s Earl Court in 1981. I enjoyed his Chronicles Volume 1 and hoped against hope we’d see volume 2 sometime.

So I was delighted when my daughter bought me The Philosophy of Modern Song for my birthday. The book is sumptuously presented, in large size hardback format, with a glossy dust cover and beautifully weighted pages. It’s jam-packed with lovely illustrations and photographs, all in a matt finish. So, as a physical book, it definitely makes for a nice present.

It’s not, as you might imagine, any sort of dissertation on the art of modern song-writing. Rather, it consists of Dylan’s musings on sixty-six songs, mostly from the nineteen fifties and sixties, and I consumed the book day-by-day beside my Amazon Echo, asking Alexa to play each song as I went along. I confess to not being familiar with most of the songs, so it was a delight to dip in to this cornucopia of Dylan’s musical whimsy and be transported to another musical era.

Dylan can write well – he’s won the Nobel prize for literature, so I guess that oughtn’t to be a surprise – and gives us two or three pages on each song. If you’ve ever listened to Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Show, you can practically hear Dylan read the words to you.

Often we get some background on the artist – so I now know a little bit about a Bobby Darin or a Marty Robbins – as well as Dylan’s thoughts about the song. These can be just sheer whimsy, or amusing, or almost philosophical. Sometimes it’s quite unintelligible (try his comments on religion on the song If You Don’t Know Me By Now); but there are occasional moments of deep insight – I liked this from the commentary on Harry McClintock’s Jesse James: “Criminals can wear badges, army uniforms, or even sit in the House of Representatives. They can be billionaires, corporate raiders or stockbroker analysts. Even medical doctors.”

And his take on Edwin Starr’s War, one of the longest essays in the book, is thoughtful and measured, with some forthright comment on American two Gulf wars and the responsibilities of democracy.

There’s genuine warmth here too, for artists like Johnny Cash, Dean Martin and Roy Orbison, and the sheer depth of Dylan’s knowledge of modern American music is nothing short of remarkable.

But there are also moments that are jarring. Take a comment on Elvis’s Money, Honey for example. Dylan says, “ultimately money doesn’t matter.” Well, OK for you to say, who’s just sold your back catalogue for about $200m. So rich that Dylan can be out of touch with the majority of people in the world who hardly have enough money to get by and to whom money matters a heck of a lot.

Dylan also seems, at times, to have a rather dark imagination. At times I was brought up short by his interpretation of a song, which appeared to me to be much more innocent than Dylan’s thought world.

And then there is the sexism. Now to be fair, when you’re commenting on songs from the 50s or 60s that now feel rather sexist, your comments might simply be reflective of the lyrics. Nevertheless the comments about hard women, teasing women, women with a short fuse, women waiting for her man to come home from work, “foxy” women, two-faced beauties…and so it goes on…become more than a little wearing. I really can’t imagine any woman enjoying this.

Particularly jarring is the chapter on Johnnie Taylor’s 1973 Cheaper to Keep Her. This is an obnoxious little song and even the choice of it is questionable, because Dylan certainly doesn’t use it to be critical of it in any way. Actually he doubles down on the sexism and androcentrism of the song, going off on an extended riff about marriage and divorce, which ends up giving a shout out to polygamy. This is pretty distasteful, as is his appallingly insensitive comment about childless marriages: “A couple who has no children, that’s not a marriage. They are just two friends.”

Out of sixty-six songs in the book, remarkably only four are by women. The Nina Simone song Dylan chose was Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, which actually was written by a man, Horace Ott, on the occasion of feeling misunderstood by his wife after they’d had an argument (poor man). Simone changed the lyric from “Baby, don’t you know I’m human, And I’ve got thoughts like any other man” to “anyone“. Still, a pretty poor choice from all the great songs Nina Simone sang,

Still, Dylan does note insightfully, “But the song has taken on more meanings as Nina’s measured, defiant delivery has been adopted by some as an understated social equality anthem. Songs can do that…”

So, it’s a pretty mixed bag from Dylan. A great idea presenting a rather random catalogue of old songs for today’s readers to check out and enjoy. Some hugely enjoyable and at times insightful and amusing comments from Dylan. But hand-in-hand we get some truly jarring and distasteful moments. Oh, and did I mention the f-bombs here and there? Not really needed, Bob.

There’s a lot to enjoy here, but sadly much to skip over. Someone tell him, the times, they are a-changin’.

Best Blues Albums 2022 – So Far

No shortage of terrific blues albums this year thus far. We’ve chosen 15 of the best, including albums of traditional blues, blues rock, and bluesy Americana. We’ve maybe been a bit light on acoustic blues albums so far, but let’s see what the rest of the year brings. In the meantime, go check out each of these outstanding albums

Elles Bailey, Shining in the Half Light

UK Blues Award winner’s Bailey’s third studio album of soulful and passionate blues. She’s a remarkable talent, and here delivers ten songs that highlight just how good her powerful, but beautifully controlled voice is. If you’re not familiar with Ms. Bailey, put that right, right now with this terrific album.

Dana Fuchs, Borrowed Time

Dana Fuchs has a wonderful, nuanced, blues-tinged voice with just the right amount of huskiness. This album of rock songs has heaps of blues feeling and soul, along with some delicious guitar work. [Check out our interview with Ms. Fuchs here]

Eric Gales, Crown

This is a remarkable piece of work from the talented Eric Gales, stretching the boundaries of blues rock and setting a new standard for the genre. The musicianship and arrangements serve the strength of the song-writing perfectly, Gales’s singing is versatile and powerful and, of course, as you’d expect, his guitar work is all you’d want from one of the world’s great electric guitar players. [Full review here]

Katie Henry, On My Way

Stylish album of bluesy Americana from the very talented New Jersey native Katie Henry. There’s nice variety in the songs, from the blues of the opening song to more jazzy or country-tinged numbers. Ms. Henry is a terrific and versatile vocalist and a talented pianist and guitarist to boot.

Son House, Forever On My Mind

Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound label is restoring and releasing Dick Waterman’s archived tape collection of Delta blues artists, and this collection of Son House songs, Forever on My Mind is the first instalment. The sound quality on the album is great and it contains eight classic House songs, including Preachin’ Blues, Death Letter, Pony Blues and Levee Camp Moan. [Full review here]

Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder, Get On Board

Mahal and Cooder’s set of Terry and McGhee songs tries to recreate something of the rawness of the blues recordings of yesteryear, and it has the feeling of two old friends thoroughly enjoying themselves. Taj Mahal said, “There are basic things in our culture that connect us, that allow us to be able to reach back and connect to a history of people, the things that nourish us as a people, and music, this music is one of those things.” In Get on Board, Mahal and Cooder reach back and connect to a part of blues history, helping to make sure it is not forgotten. [Full review here]

Dom Martin, A Savage Life

Dom Martin’s new album, A Savage Life, sees him fulfil the potential that his acclaimed 2019 album, Spain to Italy, pointed to. Martin is a multiple UK and European Blues Award winner who seems equally at home playing the acoustic blues of Blind Blake and the blues-rock of Rory Gallagher. Add to that his expressive vocals, and you have in Dom Martin the real deal. His guitar work and vocals throughout are stellar and the arrangements and musicianship from the rest of the band, are excellent. [Full review here]

Keb’ Mo’, Good to be Home

Another fine and hugely enjoyable album from Keb’ Mo’. It’s not exactly the blues, but – hey, it’s Keb’ Mo’! It’s feel-good stuff all the way, Sunny and Warm, the third song, describing things perfectly. Mr Mo’ is joined for good measure by Darius Rucker, the Old Crow Medicine Show and Kristin Chenoweth. Good Strong Woman continues Keb’ Mo’s recent affirmation of women, as opposed to the sexist lyrics often heard in the blues.

John Mayall, The Sun is Shining Down

You expect a John Mayall album to be good and this one doesn’t disappoint. 89-year-old Mayall is joined by a number of guests, including Marcus King, Buddy Miller, Scarlett Rivera in eight covers and two originals. It’s top-notch, modern blues rock, and you’ve got to hand it to John Mayall – for 60 years he’s been leading the charge with the blues and The Sun is Shining Down shows no sign of waning performance.

North Mississippi Allstars, Set Sail

An album from these Mississippi hill country guys is always welcome and Set Sail doesn’t disappoint. It’s a bit different from previous albums, not so much blues rock as funky R&B with a hint of gospel. Luther Dickinson’s unmistakable, laid back vocals are augmented in a few songs by Stax legend William Bell and the Allman Brothers’ Lamar Williams. It’s fine, upbeat stuff pointing us to brighter days.

Charlie Musselwhite, Mississippi Son

Fourteen mostly original songs from the 78-year-old veteran bluesman, Musselwhite, who plays guitar and harmonica and handles the vocals throughout. Songs like In Your Darkest Hour and Rank Strangers are perfect front-porch blues, with Musselwhite’s searching harp and raw vocals. Mississippi Son puts you right back in the heat and sweat of Musselwhite’s home state and bears testimony to the man’s lifetime in the blues. (And what about that album cover? Very cool).

Bonnie Raitt, Just Like That

Her first album in six years, it’s all you’d want from a Bonnie Raitt album. Cool songs, Raitt’s characteristic slide guitar and her ever soulful vocals. The ten songs are strong, narrative-based, and well-arranged, and Raitt, now in her eighth decade delivers a classy performance throughout. The title track is a wonderful treat, pretty much just Raitt picking her acoustic guitar and singing plaintively.

Mavis Staples & Levon Helm, Carry Me Home

Carry Me Home is something of a masterpiece, it would not be too bold to suggest, a celebration of friendship, mutual admiration and faith. You can’t help but be moved by both the poignancy of the selection of songs and the pair’s performances, now knowing that Helm was to pass shortly after and that Staples is now in her 83^rd year. It’s simply a great set of songs, a wonderful collection of blues, gospel and Americana. [Full review here]

Cristina Vane, Make Myself Again

Cristine Vane is a quite wonderful talent – a skilful guitar picker and slide player, a fine songwriter and a beautiful singer. It’s the sign of a talented songwriter and musician to give a traditional feel to a song, and yet have it feel bang up to date. Vane says she’s “essentially a rock kid who is obsessed with old music.” And that’s a winning combination. This is a top class album of 13 well-crafted songs, blessed by Vane’s silky vocals and guitar chops.

Edgar Winter, Brother Johnny

Several years in the making, Brother Johnny is a labour of love, a warm tribute by Edgar Winter to his brother, who passed away aged 70 in 2014. Brother Johnny features a star-studded cast of musicians, including Keb’ Mo’, Ringo Starr, Joe Bonamassa, Robben Ford, Warren Hayes, Billy Gibson, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. With 17 tracks and clocking in at 76 minutes, it’s a huge treat of an album and a fine tribute to one of the giants of blues rock. [Full review here]

Just Like a Woman: The Women Sing Dylan

There are no shortage of cover albums – call them tribute albums – of Bob Dylan songs. Over the last 20 years or so, in particular, there have been a slew of them. These have included both well-known artists paying homage with a complete album of Dylan songs, and a number of compilation albums of various artists performing Dylan songs. Three of these I particularly like are the 1993 The 30^th Anniversary  Concert Celebration, 2001’s A Nod to Bob and 2003’s Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan.

But it’s the single artist albums we want to highlight here, and in particular those done by women artists, which, in my view, are particularly good. Interesting that that should be the case, given the accusations from time to time that some of Dylan’s lyrics are sexist (Just Like A Woman comes to mind). The man is, of course, now over 80 and his early songs stretch back to another age, about 60 years ago, and might be expected to share the broad values of society. Anyway, that hasn’t stopped women enjoying, performing and recording Dylan songs, and we’re thankful for that, listening to the following albums. Here is Down at the Crossroads list of the 12 best.

Odetta, Odetta Sings Dylan (1965)

It was Odetta who set Bob Dylan on his path as a folk singer. After hearing one of her records, Dylan said, “Right there and then I went out and traded my electric guitar and amplifier for a flat-top Gibson.” In 1961, he performed for Odetta, who told him she thought he had a chance to make it in folk music. As big a star as Odetta was at the time, she was eventually eclipsed by Dylan and in 1965 she recorded what was the first major album of Dylan covers. It included some of Dylan’s famed protest songs like Masters of War and Blowin’ In the Wind, as well as some tracks that are now quite obscure, like Long Ago, Far Away and Paths of Victory.

Judy Collins, Judy Collins Sings Dylan (1993)

Collin’s soaring vocals work surprisingly well in this set of mostly early Dylan songs. Collins sang with Dylan on a number of occasions in the ‘60s, and Dylan wrote a song for her, I’ll Keep it with Mine. Here she includes I Believe in You, which seems to lose the force of Dylan’s passionate confession of faith and Like a Rolling Stone, which takes the sting out of the resentment in the song, but nevertheless sounds pretty well. And yes, she does Just Like a Woman, which is quite beautiful.

Barb Jungr, Every Grain of Sand (2002)

In this and her 2011 Man in the Long Black Coat, Barb Jungr gives Dylan a throughgoing jazz treatment. This may be the most unusual of the covers’ albums, with Jungr’s well-phrased vocals, the cabaret piano accompaniments and the jazzy arrangements. She includes some classic songs like Blowin’ in the Wind and Masters of War as well as some lesser known songs from the canon. Perhaps the most unusual one served up is You Gotta Serve Somebody.

Mary Lee’s Corvette, Blood on the Tracks, 2002

This album by Mary-Lee Kortes’ band focuses on just one album of Dylan songs. At first glance, Blood on the Tracks, arguably Dylan’s greatest album would appear to be a brave one to cover. Mary Lee is a cross between a country and rock singer and has more than enough vocal chops to pull off these songs. It’s enjoyable stuff, although I found Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts jarring – seemingly not knowing what to do with the song, the band chose to send it up with mocking imitations of Dylan’s singing inflections.

Maria Muldaur, Heart of Mine: The Love Songs of Bob Dylan, 2006

Fine collection of Dylan love songs like You Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go, I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight and Make You Feel My Love are given some delicious blues-soaked vocal treatment from the ever-entertaining Ms. Muldaur. Muldaur, who played with Dylan in the ’60s, said, ““It occurred to me that while Dylan is mostly known for his scathing, perceptive, brutally honest and insightful songs of social consciousness, he has in fact, over the years, written many deeply passionate, poignant and moving love songs.” She brings her usual passion and heartfelt approach in an album well worth checking out.

Janet Planet, Sings The Bob Dylan Songbook Vol. 1, 2010

Janet Planet is a successful Australian jazz singer and her 13 Dylan songs are given the full late-night jazz treatment. She restricts herself to the classics from Dylan’s early years, all songs that can stand the sort of drastic rearrangements she gives them. Planet is a first-class singer and her performance on Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat is top notch.

Thea Gilmore, John Wesley Harding, 2011

English artist Gilmore has taken a rather different approach to covering Dylan songs, here focusing on a single album, Dylan’s 1967 John Wesley Harding. Although Dylan’s album was well received at the time, it flew in the face of what other major rock artist were doing. Said Jon Landau, “Dylan seems to feel no need to respond to the predominate [sic] trends in pop music at all. And he is the only major pop artist about whom this can be said.” The songs lend themselves to the more acoustic approach of the original album and to the Gilmore singer-songwriter take on them. The songs are timeless and Thea Gilmore’s reflective take on them works extremely well. Her I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine is simply brilliant and the stripped back I Am A Lonesome Hobo gives you an opportunity to appreciate the quality of her voice.

Joan Osborne, Songs of Bob Dylan, 2017

Joan Osborne famously and quite beautifully covered Dylan’s Man in the Long Black Coat in her acclaimed and Grammy-nominated album Relish in 1995. Ten of the thirteen songs from Dylan’s early period sit alongside Ring Them Bells, High Water, Dark Eyes and Tryin’ to Get to Heaven. Osborne’s distinctive, world-weary voice gives a wholly enjoyable and fresh interpretation to some classic songs.

Betty LaVette, Things Have Changed, 2018

Betty LaVette brings her lifetime of experience as a soul and blues singer to bear on a judiciously chosen set of Dylan songs. As soon as you hear her launch into Things Have Changed, singing “tha-ings” with two syllables, you know this is going to be a big treat. She includes a couple of songs from 1989’s Oh Mercy – Political World is performed as a slow, funky blues and features the guitar of Keith Richards, and What Was It You Wanted becomes a laid-back jazzy number with the help from Trombone Shorty. This is a stellar album, with LaVette pulling more emotion out of Emotionally Yours than ever Dylan did.

Emma Swift, Blonde on the Tracks, 2020

Australian singer-songwriter Emma Swift pulls off her covers album with considerable aplomb. Most of the songs are from Dylan’s early period, but interestingly, she includes I Contain Multitudes, from Dylan’s 2020 Rough and Rowdy Ways. Nice to her do Queen Jane Approximately and Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands. At 57 minutes, the deluxe version of the album, which includes some live versions of the songs gives good value.

Chrissie Hynde, Standing in the Doorway, 2021

Lead vocalist of The Pretenders gives us a terrific selection of songs from throughout Dylan’s career from 1965’s Love Minus Zero/No Limit to 1997’s Standing in the Doorway. It kicks off with Shot of Love’s In the Summertime, just Hynde and a 12-string guitar and you know this is gonna work. Her strung-out vocals on Blind Willie McTell are masterful.

Lucinda Williams, Lu’s Jukebox: Bob’s Back Pages, 2021

Lucinda Williams’ world-weary, at times croaky voice, with the slurred lyrics is perfect for Dylan songs. Her Everything is Broken, with just a hint of menace, is just about perfect. She includes a few dark Dylan songs – Not Dark Yet, Political World, Man of Peace and Trying to Get to Heaven – all performed with a full band and yet sounding suitably sparce. Williams can do tender as well though – Make You Feel My Love is all that, in a decidedly Lucinda Williams kind of way. Her Blind Willie McTell is maybe the stand-out track.

DMZ’s Anthony “Amp” Daniels – hope in troubled times

Dedicated Men of Zion – or let’s use the more cool abbreviation, DMZ – is band with a powerful combination of soul and gospel that will make your day brighter, your smile broader and get your feet dancing. It’s infectious, inspirational stuff, packed full of tight harmonies and funky rhythms. The music is traditional in many ways, with a clear heritage in 1960s and 70s soul and gospel, but it’s got a very contemporary feel. It’s music for today. It’s what Music Maker Relief Foundation co-founder Tim Duffy calls “sacred soul.”

And that’s what Bruce Watson of Fat Possum Records recognized three years or so ago, when he signed DMZ to his new Bible and Tire label. [check out our interview with Bruce Watson here.] The band recorded its first album Can’t Turn Me Around, in Watson’s Delta-Sonic Sound studio backed by his all-star band, in Memphis in 2019 and have followed that up now by The Devil Don’t Like It. Like the first album, it’s bursting with positivity, gospel truth, beautiful harmonies and sweet lead vocals.

DMZ emerged in 2014 in eastern North Carolina, a region renowned for its musicality and gospel harmonies. The music made in rural Black churches for many decades has, in fact, been the foundation for so much of the commercial music we’re familiar with. DMZ taps into the deep roots of gospel which its members have experienced in the church, as well as classic sounds of soul and R&B.

Anthony “Amp” Daniels is the eldest of the group, and he’s had a successful a career in R&B down in Atlanta, backing up the likes of Bebe Winans and Toni Braxton, and producing records.

The other vocalists in the band, all fine singers, Antwan Daniels, Dexter Weaver, and Marcus Sugg, are all related by blood or marriage.

I got talking to Anthony about DMZ, the new album and making music. Our conversation sparkled with joy. I asked him first of all, about his musical background. He told me,

“My family was very musical and from a small child, that’s what we did. As a small boy, it’s just music and singing. My mother, she taught me to sing. It’s always been a very serious thing in my home, singing. My mother was more serious about singing than my education! Later she started being more serious about my education, but singing was just so important to her. It came from her father and then from her to my brother and sister and me. So it’s just something we always did.”

I assumed that the singing was really fostered in church but Anthony said that, although he sang in church, it was really his home environment that was his training ground and where his love of singing was nurtured.

“It was a home thing and it was something that we had to do every day. My mother would come in and we would have to sing. In fact, we had to talk in harmony as children!  That’s how it was.

“But we started out in the choir, church choirs, and just traveling to other churches and singing. And even when I visited with my grandmother, she would have my brother and my sister and me sing for her all the time. It’s just singing, singing, singing. I love to sing though. So, it wasn’t a problem. I loved it. And I love to sing now.”

Anthony is a talented guy, not only a terrific singer, but an experienced keyboards player, having played in church and then for years with his mother’s group, the Glorifying Vines Sisters, a longstanding Farmville gospel institution. He’s also had a career as a record producer, producing recordings for the Glorifying Vines and also for R&B and pop music artists. His nickname is “Amp,” which I assumed had some association with amplifiers, but Anthony told me he wasn’t entirely sure how he got it.

“As a child I grew up with that. I guess it’s an abbreviated kind of thing. Sometimes it might be hard for children to say “Anthony” and they’ll say “Amp” instead of a “Ant.” It’s a Southern thing. People give you a nickname!”

How, I wondered, did DMZ get started?

“Well, back in 2014, I was working with a relative of mine on his project and it fell through. His guys started leaving his band so I began to recruit some guys that I knew, but the band fell apart. But the guys didn’t wanna quit, so the group became the Dedicated Men of Zion.”

DMZ consists of four singers – Anthony’s son Antoine, his sons-in-law Marcus and Antwan, and Dexter Weaver, his nephew in-law – and four musicians. They perform far and wide in the United States, but Anthony wants to get the band to Europe.

“I performed in Switzerland with my parents and I’m just ready to get back. I’m ready to get back in the UK. I love that. I just want these guys I’m with now to get an opportunity to just experience that. They’ll love it.”

I asked him how the relationship with Bible and Tire, Bruce Watson’s label, came about.

“We actually met Bruce through Tim Duffy of the Music Makers Foundation [check out our interview with Tim Duffy here]. Tim put us together and it was like a great marriage, man. It was fantastic. I love working with Bruce. We just have a great relationship. I mean we’re talking about a third album already.”

Both albums are brimming with musicality, groove and inspiration. They are obviously gospel, but the description “sacred soul” seems to nail it.

“I think so, because sacred soul music is music for the soul, you know. It’s gospel music and sacred soul is like a division of that. It’s very similar to gospel, but I guess it’s just focusing a little bit differently musically. But I love the name sacred soul. I think it describes it really well.”

When people think of gospel music, they often think about a certain musical sound, certain piano chords and a certain feeling from the music. But I wondered, does it need to be more than that? How important for Anthony is the lyrical content?

“It’s very important. Music is good but the message is important. A good song to me has a message. You can have instrumentals, like, for example, a jazz instrumental and all this kind of stuff, and people still call it a song. But to me, a song should have a good lyrical content, a good story, a good message. And it helps if it’s therapeutic. Sometimes you hear music and it’ll take you somewhere, take you back to another time and place in life. You could be in 2022 and you could hear a song and it’ll take you back to 1985 or something, you know? And it’s just a really good feeling.”

Anthony went on to sum up the message in DMZ’s music: “I guess I would say that the message is positive. We want to give a good positive message, we just want to sing something that will lift your spirit and be encouraging.

“We want it to be encouraging, uplifting, inspirational. Just therapeutic. You know, just help to bring people through – sometimes we need that. You can have a bad back and you have to go to the chiropractor, but where do you go when you’re feeling down? When you need to be uplifted, when you just want to get away and free your mind from some other things. We have a lot of things that we go through – people have bills and they’re dealing with sickness and death, but sometimes a good old song will lift you up, make you feel better. Inspire you. So those are the kind of things we want to get across with this music. And make people smile just for a minute anyway.”

I wanted to know about the faith component of the music. You can have a nice song that has a nice feel about it that might make you feel good. But DMZ songs are more than that, there’s a faith component to the songs.

“Well, yeah, there’s definitely a faith component, we’re dealing with faith and belief. But it gives hope and it’s still encouraging and it still can be uplifting [to anyone]. It’s a feel good. When we were in Switzerland playing, some people didn’t speak English, but they were still saying it felt good. One woman told us, my daughter doesn’t speak English, but she wanted to tell you that she really enjoyed it. So sometimes you don’t have to understand it and it still feels good.”

I asked Anthony about the new album, The Devil Don’t Like, which is very, very good, the levels of production, song arrangements and musicality all very high. It was the band’s second experience of working with Bruce Watson of whom Anthony has said has “a way of pushing an artist to get the best out of them without the artist ever knowing that they are being pushed…the guy is just extraordinary as a person as well as a producer. Trust me when I tell you an outstanding band and a great producer can really bring the best out of an artist and a song. Bruce’s vision of preserving the originality of sacred soul music is educational, unique and inspiring.”

On song selection, Anthony said, “Bruce sent us songs and asked us to select ten. So we listened to them and selected songs that really felt good to us, ones we could really hear ourselves doing.”

Most of the songs, I didn’t recognize, but there’s a great version of Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s Up Above My Head. I can imagine a congregation or an audience singing along with it and also God’s Got His Eyes On You. I was intrigued by the title track, The Devil Don’t Like It, which funny enough, isn’t very much about the devil. Most of it is about God “putting his hand on me.” You just get that little phrase at the end.

“Yeah. And that’s the ironic part about that song. It’s a very small portion of that song. But I guess it’s a catchy phrase. But when I first heard that song, I said, I’m doing it!”

The harmonies on the album are stunningly good, but so too are the lead vocals – beautiful, modern-sounding singing. I’m Going Home is a great example, where the lead vocalist is to the fore and the harmonizing kicks in here and there to support. Who, I asked, takes the lead vocals?

“Well, mostly we share the lead parts. Everybody in the group can sing lead and everybody has their own style of singing. We’re all different and everybody sings it their way. I love it that variety, you know – it’s one group with multiple talents, so you don’t get so tired of just hearing that same thing over and over. You need to have a variety, you know?”

I was intrigued by A Change Is Gonna Come. We’re all familiar with the famous version by Sam Cooke from 1964, which came right in the middle of the civil rights movement and was clearly about events of the time. So I wondered what DMZ’s song is all about.

“When we heard that song – my son sings that song – and what we got from it, and what we feel with the conditions in the world…to me, it’s about hope, you know? No matter what we’re going through, especially with all the bad stuff – change is coming. And I know Sam Cooke’s version was totally different but it’s still the same message. When we look at the conditions, the bad in the world, the message is don’t worry, don’t give up. Change is coming. It’ll get better.”

As a non-American, someone who doesn’t live in America, I wondered if there was any particular reference to today’s America. Is there any particular change that needs to come?

“I would love to see change in America. Of course there are some things I would like to see changed. No matter how many times people tell you things are equal, things are not equal. If we had more equality, treating everybody the same, instead of, you know, separation, I think that would really solve a lot of the issues that we have.

“Everybody being treated equal, regardless of race, colour or whatever. We should just treat people like people, everybody just as humans. We know that there’s some bad everywhere. It doesn’t matter about ethnicity, black, white color, whatever. You have bad everywhere. But everybody’s not that way. So I would just love to see every person being treated the same. Regardless. You know what I’m saying? That’s one thing I would love to see change.”

Does America need to make a more progress with that?

“Yes, I think so. I really believe in that. I just wish that it would happen. I wish that there was some way that it could. Even with a job application, just as simple as that – why do we have to put our race on a job application? It doesn’t matter – if a person can do a job, then a person can do a job. But there’s just so much division, you know?”

Again, as a non-American, I was intrigued to ask Anthony about the divisions in church life in the United States, where there are black churches and white churches. Would it be better if it wasn’t that way?

“I think it’s historical. It’s just the freedom of religion. But if we’re both in the same belief, in the same faith, why can’t we worship together? Instead of you gotta be over there in that black church and I’m here in a white church. We’re worshiping in the same faith, but we can’t do it together. So much division, so much separation and it would be so much better together.”

Anthony told me that he saw a little bit of movement towards people worshipping together, towards integration, but he sensed that people can be afraid and so division continues.

Bruce Watson

We finished off our conversation talking about the music. Anthony was enthusiastic about the band that Bruce Watson had put together for the album – really, the backing band sounds superb.  

“We had studio musicians working with us and they were fantastic and their attitudes were awesome. Just awesome musicians. And just the greatest guys to be around, that whole band and I love them. Bruce Watson put those guys together. That’s his studio band. We went into the studio and no one wanted to leave.

“You know, studio work is hard work. They want more than you can give sometimes, but you gotta give some more. But those guys made it so relaxed for us. And Bruce had a way of just pushing you without you even realizing you’re being pushed. It’s cool. He’ll nudge you, all smiles, and he’s just trying to get the best out of you. I love it.”

Like most musicians, the pandemic put paid to DMZ performances, but things are picking up for the guys now, with up to twelve dates a month. And Anthony’s raring to go.

Like the music DMZ makes, Anthony Daniels exudes sunny positivity. If you get the chance to go see these guys, don’t hesitate, and in the meantime, go pick up a copy of their two albums. The devil may not like them – but you will, for sure.

Son House, live and restored

LONDON: Blues guitarist Son House (Eddie James ‘Son’ House, Jr) performs on stage at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1967 in London. Image is part of David Redfern Premium Collection. (Photo by David Redfern/Redferns)

Son House, who died in March 1988, was one of the original Delta bluesmen, who began singing and playing guitar in 1927, and within a short time became a blues legend. Friends with Charlie Patton, he recorded nine classic songs for Paramount Records in the 1930s and was a major influence on Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. After recording for Alan Lomax and the Library of Congress in 1942, he quit playing and moved to Rochester, New York. His music career was revived, however, after his re-discovery in the mid-sixties, recording and touring America and Europe.

His life and later career were marred by his alcoholism – Howlin’ Wolf told him, “You had a chance with your life, but you ain’t done nothin’ with it…See, you in love with one thing, and that’s some whiskey.” Nevertheless, House managed some remarkable live performances and recordings at this time and the songs on Forever on My Mind are from 1964, from a taped performance at Wabash College in Indiana obtained by House’s manager and blues curator Dick Waterman. [check out our review of Waterman’s biography here]

Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound label is restoring and releasing Waterman’s archived tape collection of Delta blues artists, and Forever on My Mind is the first instalment. The sound quality on the album is great and it contains eight classic House songs, including Preachin’ Blues, Death Letter, Pony Blues and Levee Camp Moan.

House was first gripped by hearing the sound of glass on steel – the bottleneck slide – when, as a young pastor, he strolled past a house where a party or “frolic” was taking place. He stopped to listen. “Wonder what’s that he’s playing? I knew that guitars hadn’t usually been sounding like that. So I eases up close enough to look,” House said. “Sheez, I like that! I believe I want to play one of them things.”

Whereupon he got himself a guitar, albeit with only 5 strings and a hole in the back and learned to play it, after Willie Wilson (who was the bluesman at the frolic whom he had heard) fixed it up for him. With his guitar tuned in Open G, he soon was “zinging it” as he called it, with the bottleneck slide. Within a matter of weeks, he was out earning money at gigs. And as he said himself, “I kept on playing and got better and better.”

And on Forever On My Mind, there’s plenty of “zinging,” House working his resonator skilfully in accompaniment to his characteristically expressive vocals. The songs sound, perhaps, more reflective and calmer than other recordings, though they still drip with emotion.

Many people will know Death Letter from his videoed 1965 performance (with 3.5m views on YouTube), which is frantic and anguished. House made the song a centrepiece of his live shows during the 1960s, often playing it more than once during a concert. About a man who learns by letter of the death of the woman he loves and who later views her body at the morgue, Paul Du Noyer said the song is “one of the most anguished and emotionally stunning laments in the Delta blues œuvre.”

The version of Death Letter included here is a much calmer version, the slide playing more nuanced. Given the nature of the song, though, it is by no means mellow, and House expresses the tragedy masterfully.

Preachin’ Blues has a nice combination of slide work on both strummed chords and single notes and, no matter how often you hear it, the song is always arresting. This song was something of a signature song for House and it vividly describes the tussle between the church and the blue devils for his soul – a tussle the church kept losing. He sang:

Oh, and I had religion Lord this very day
But the womens and whiskey, well they would not let me pray.

By all accounts House had been an accomplished preacher. Yet, for most of his preaching career, he was living a double life, drinking and womanizing. In Preachin’ the Blues, a deacon jumps up in church and accuses the minister:

Another deacon jumped up and said, “Why don’t ya hush?”
“You know you drink corn liquor and your life’s a horrible stink.”

Which might well be an accusation that House either had thrown at himself or felt should have been thrown at him. And his disillusionment with religion, or at least his disillusionment with himself as a worthy church leader, comes out in these lines from the song:

Yes, I’m gonna get me religion, I’m gonna join the Baptist Church.
You know I wanna be a Baptist preacher, just so I won’t have to work.

The title track is real, old time Delta blues, bleak but articulated beautifully by House and accompanied mostly by sparse single note guitar work. Never officially recorded and released before, it’s a fine introduction to forty-five minutes of blues history, the recordings superbly re-mastered by Easy Eye Sound.

The final song is another Son House classic, Levee Camp Moan. Levee camps were temporary settlements along the Mississippi River for about 60 years until 1940 for workers on the earthen levees that run along both sides of the river’s banks. The workforce was almost entirely black men who were fearfully exploited – forced to work long work hours, paid badly and harshly disciplined. House’s song laments a man’s separation from his woman and the problem in their relationship “when I done not get the check.”

The album gives us Son House at the peak of his abilities, sober, and singing and playing with passion and clarity. Dick Waterman said of the concert: “The show was held in kind of an assembly hall. There were a few dozen, there may have been up to fifty people, something like that. They were quiet and polite during the performance…There were no barriers, there were no filters between him and the audience. He was just giving them the plain, unvarnished Delta material, as he knew it and as he sang it.”

Plain and unvarnished it may be, but it sounds fresh and clear. Waterman and Easy Eye have given us a great gift in these wonderful recordings of quintessential Delta blues by one of the masters.

Celebrating Mississippi John Hurt

A Baker’s Dozen of Great Mississippi John Hurt Songs

Photo: Joe Alper

Mississippi John Hurt has been one of the most influential of the Delta bluesmen, influencing generation after generation of blues guitar pickers and his songs covered by a who’s who of artists since he re-emerged in the 1960s after years of quiet obscurity as a farmer in Mississippi.

By all accounts he was a delightful man, soft spoken and polite, exuding a quiet wisdom and loved by everyone who met him. His faith was important to him, which became apparent to those who knew him during the years of his rediscovery. Holly Ochs, who hosted John during his early days in New York, said, “The depth and quality of that faith was so powerful that it would touch thousands of people in the few remaining years of his life.”

His biographer, Philip R. Ratcliffe notes that Hurt “was always aware of the presence of his God and would always say his prayers at night.”

Born the son of former slaves in 1892, John Hurt started playing guitar when he was nine and by his late teens had developed his own particular style. After hearing John play in 1928, The OKeh Records’ recording director invited him to Memphis where he recorded half a dozen songs and then to New York for another recording session. Songs recorded at these first sessions included many of Hurt’s best loved songs, like Louis Collins, Avalon Blues, Stack O’Lee Blues, Got the Blues Can’t Be Satisfied and Blessed Be the Name.

The Great Depression and the subsequent collapse of record sales, however, ensured that John Hurt’s musical career never took off and he returned to life as a farmer in Avalon, playing occasionally at country dances and parties.

When he was 70, still tending another man’s cows and keeping a few hogs and chickens, and he and his wife Jesse dirt poor, Dick Spottiswood happened upon some of Hurt’s 1928 Okeh recordings and went searching for him. John, though he had no guitar and hadn’t played for at least two years, agreed to go to Washington D.C. with Spottiswood and his friends. Seemingly he assumed he was in some sort of trouble with the government and thought he’d better go!

John Hurt ended up recording again and performed to appreciative audiences in festivals, coffee houses and concert halls until his death in 1966.

John Hurt’s guitar picking style has become a template and springboard for, probably, all acoustic blues guitarists. That solid, rhythmic, alternating base with a syncopated melody on the upper strings is the basis of the guitar work of Chris Smither, Rory Block, Eric Bibb and a host of others. Stefan Grossman played a big part in introducing aspiring musicians to John Hurt’s guitar style through his Guitar Workshop and instructional videos.

Happy Traum, who also met Hurt in the 1960s, has also done his part with his instructional videos. Whatever limited skill I have in playing finger-style blues guitar was set in motion by painstakingly working my way through The Fingerpicking Blues of Mississippi John Hurt, Happy Traum & John Sebastian, on Homespun.

So, in celebration of the great Mississippi John Hurt, here are 13 of his most famous songs covered by other artists. Of course, you ought to go and check out John Hurt himself, and before we get to the covers, here he is with Make Me Down a Pallet on Your Floor.

For a completely different take on it, check out Gillian Welch’s version from her 2003 Soul Journey. But here’s Happy Traum’s version.

Maria Muldaur, Richland Woman Blues

First recorded by John Hurt in 1963, Maria Muldaur’s version appears on her 2001 Richland Woman Blues album, where she is accompanied by John Sebastian, who had named his 1960’s band The Lovin’ Spoonful after a lyric in Hurt’s Coffee Blues. [check out our interview with Maria Muldaur here]

Eric Bibb, Stagalee

Stack O’Lee, Stackalee or as Bibb has it, Stagalee, references a murder in a barroom in St Louis. John Hurt, who first recorded the song in December 1928 in New York, insisted the two men involved were white men and the fight took place in a mine where Stackolee was trying to rob the miners who were gambling. Bibb’s version appears on his 2011 Blues, Ballads and Work Songs, after a live version in 2009 on Live à FIP, 2009). [Our recent interview with Eric Bibb is here]

Chris Smither, Candy Man

Chris Smither has played Mississippi John Hurt songs throughout his long career and his Candy Man appears on his excellent Train Home album from 2003. Candy Man Blues was first recorded in 1928 by Hurt and was a staple of his performances in the 1960s. It’s a bawdy song, rather at odds with the spirituals Hurt would often play, although apparently he was always reluctant to play ribald songs to people he didn’t know, especially ladies. [You can find our interview with Chris here]

Rory Block, Frankie and Albert

This very old song was first recorded by The Leighton Brothers in 1916, and is about an event said to have taken place in a St. Louis barroom where Frankie shot a ragtime pianist for his infidelity with his lover. The song was recorded by John Hurt in his very first recording session in Memphis in 1928 and then in 1966 for his second studio album of the 60s, Today! Rory Block was influenced by John Hurt as a young guitarist in the early 1960s in New York. She recorded a terrific tribute album to Hurt, Avalon Blues in 2013, with ten favourite John Hurt songs. [check out our interview with Rory Block here.]

Mary Flower, Monday Morning Blues

Mary Flower is an amazing acoustic guitarist who specializes in Piedmont-style finger picking with dashes of Delta, ragtime and jazz and jazz. Her Monday Morning Blues is on her 2007 Ragtime Gal album. John Hurt first recorded it in Memphis in February 1928. [You’ll find our interview with Mary here]

Brooks Williams, Louis Collins

John Hurt said that “He [Collins] was a great man, I know that, and he was killed by two men named Bob and Louis. I got enough of the story to write the song.” Hurt’s is the only version of the song and is almost certainly about a real event. He first recorded it in 1928 in New York. (Check out Patrick Blackman’s take on the song here). Brooks Williams is a sensational acoustic guitarist and singer and his version of Louis Collins on his 2010 Baby O! album is masterful.

Also of note is English-bluesman-in-France Paul Cowley’s wonderful interpretation of the song on his 2021 Long Time Comin’ [You’ll find our terrific interview with Paul here]

Taj Mahal, My Creole Belle

Taj Mahal sounds remarkably like John Hurt on his recording of the song on his 2016 Labor of Love. John Hurt recorded the song in 1963 on Folk Songs and Blues, his first recording on the Piedmont label after being rediscovered. Creole Belles was a song by Lampe and Sidney, first recorded in 1901.

Lonesome String Band, Let the Mermaids Flirt with Me

Originally written by William Myer, and set by John Hurt to the tune of Jimmie Rodgers’s Waiting for a Train, this is one of the lesser known Mississippi John Hurt songs, which he recorded in 1966. The Lonesome String Band on their When the Sun Comes Up album in 2018, give it a quite different feel, with the banjo and fiddle to the fore.

Catfish Keith, Satisfied and Tickled Too

Catfish Keith is a quite remarkable exponent of acoustic blues and his Satisfied and Tickled Too, which also features his wife, Penny, on his 2007 If I Could Holler album, features everything you expect from Catfish’s outstanding guitar work – slides, bends, rock solid rhythm and complex picking. [Here’s our interview with Catfish]

Hans Theessink with Big Daddy Wilson, Pay Day

Danish blues guitarist Hans Theessink has been one of Europe’s top blues artists for decades and his version of Pay Day, with his warm baritone voice melding with Wilson’s sweet tenor on their 2021 Pay Day album, is delightful.

Bruce Cockburn, Avalon Blues

Avalon in Mississippi was, of course, John Hurt’s home town, and the song records Hurt’s preference for the rural scene he was used to over the big city: “New York’s a good town but it’s not for mine, Goin’ back to Avalon, near where I have a pretty mama all the time”.  Bruce Cockburn, a hugely skilled finger-style guitarist, performs his version of the song on Avalon Blues: A Tribute to Mississippi John Hurt from 2001. This is a wonderful album of John Hurt songs by a top-class field of roots musicians. Avalon Blues is the second song.

Gillian Welch, Beulah Land

Hurt’s faith was important to him and he recorded a number of gospel songs, including Beulah Land, an old spiritual, in 1966 on his Today! album. Gillian Welch’s version on the 2001 Avalon Blues tribute album is very different from Hurt’s – more O Brother Where Art Thou, but a very fine version, nonetheless.

And it’s worth including this short video of John Oates telling the story of John Hurt’s guitar, which also features a version of Spike Driver’s Blues.

Finally, don’t miss this Mississippi John Hurt Documentary (20 mins)

Great Blues Albums: Snooks Eaglin, New Orleans Street Singer

“Snooks has got it all, including possibly the coolest name in blues history”
(Slide guitarist Martin Harley)

Snooks Eaglin was born Fird Eaglin Jr. around 1936, and lost his sight shortly after his first birthday. Nevertheless, he taught himself to play guitar as a child by listening to the radio and by the time he was 10, he was singing and playing in local Baptist churches. When he was 11, he won a talent contest at a radio station with his version of 12^th Street Rag and then dropped out of school three years later to become a professional musician.

He was a talented guitarist, singer and performer, being dubbed the “human jukebox” for his ability to play a vast range of songs, rarely sticking to a set list and regularly taking requests from his audience. Eaglin often claimed his repertoire included 2,500 songs!

On the guitar Eaglin could play finger-picking blues, jazz, R&B or Hendrix-like rock. He’d amaze people by playing melody, bass and chords, seemingly all at once. Keyboardist /producer Ron Levy said, “He can play any song just off the top of his head. If he can think about it and hear it in his head, he can play it perfectly.” Levy goes on to recount how at a party “Snooks was sitting in the corner playing, and he sounded great. But after a while I noticed that he was missing a couple strings on his guitar but it didn’t seem to make any difference. He still sounded great!”

Eaglin recorded and toured inconsistently over his long 50-year career, but his first recordings, released by Folkways in 1959 as New Orleans Street Singer, showcase Eaglin’s prodigious talent both in terms of his guitar chops and his vocal performance.

These recordings were made by folklorist Harry Oster, who had found the 22-year-old Eaglin playing in the streets of New Orleans. If club or studio work was sparse, Eaglin would often would play on the street for tourists in the French Quarter. Although Eaglin had played in a band for many years, in these recordings he plays in an acoustic blues style, just him and his guitar. Eaglin proves himself to be an exceptionally accomplished guitarist, with a sophisticated, metronomic strumming style perforated by complex and fast runs. His singing, although a bit reminiscent of Ray Charles, is all his own – it’s laid back, a bit throaty, a bit soulful and thoroughly captivating.

There are 16 tracks on the album, a combination of traditional blues songs and covers of R&B songs of the period. It kicks off with a jaunty version of Careless Love, followed up by the slow blues of Come Back Baby, written and recorded by singer and pianist Walter Davis in 1940, but made popular shortly before Eaglin recorded this album by Ray Charles on his debut album in 1956.

The album has a lovely balance with slow songs and songs you could dance to, and throughout, even with songs like St. James Infirmary or Trouble in Mind, there’s a positive, upbeat feel to it all, fuelled by Eaglin’s much-to-be-admired guitar work.

His guitar chops are especially on display on the instrumental number High Society, which features some amazingly fast runs up and down the fretboard.

There’s one serious song on the album. I Got My Questionnaire, later covered as Uncle Sam Blues by Jefferson Airplane, about a man called up to go to a war not of his own choosing. Pretty topical then – and now.

Said Uncle Sam ain’t no woman
But he sure can take your man
Well, they got him in the service
Doin’ somethin’ he don’t understand

The album finishes with the upbeat Look Down That Lonesome Road. Eaglin’s rhythmic strumming and nicely phrased vocals will leave you with a smile on your face.

Eaglin’s Seventh Day Adventist faith loomed large in his life. His seventh day observance kept him from playing on from Friday evening to Saturday night, and he wouldn’t perform on religious holidays either, winning him admirers for sticking to his convictions. He recorded and performed gospel songs throughout his life – check out the moving I Must See Jesus.

By all accounts, he was both a delight and a marvel to see perform. New Orleans guitarist Camile Baudoin has said, “When Snooks plays, that’s all I can do is laugh, makes me feel so good. Nobody plays like Snooks Eaglin. Nobody.”

Snooks Eaglin passed away in 2009, so we don’t have the privilege of seeing him perform live. But we have recordings like The New Orleans Street Singer where we get to hear his musical genius.

Track Listing (Folkways FA-2476, 1959)
01 Careless Love
02 Come Back Baby
03 High Society
04 Let Me Go Home Whiskey
05 Trouble in Mind
06 St. James Infirmary
07 I Got My Questionnaire
08 The Drifter Blues
09 Rock Island Line
10 Every Day I Have the Blues
11 Sophisticated Blues
12 See See Rider
13 One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer
14 A Thousand Miles Away From Home
15 I’m Looking for a Woman
16 Look Down That Lonesome Road

Corey Harris – “The blues is a textbook for life”

“Blues is the news we can use to survive in a world on fire”

For nearly thirty years, Corey Harris has been at the forefront of blues interpretation, fusing jazz, reggae, gospel and Caribbean influences to traditional blues. Along the way he has recorded and played with artists like B.B. King, Taj Mahal, Buddy Guy, R.L. Burnside, Ali Farka Toure, and others, performing throughout North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Australasia. He starred in Scorsese’s Feel Like Going Home and collaborated with Billy Bragg on the Mermaid Avenue album series.

He’s a W.C. Handy Blues Award winner, has an honorary doctorate in music and was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship Award for Genius.

Insurrection Blues, his new album, is a fantastic collection of traditional blues songs performed with passion, rawness and fine guitar picking. The album was recorded in May 2021 in

Abruzzo in Italy, where Corey lived during the pandemic before returning to the United States. The album also features contributions on a couple of tracks from harmonica player, Phil Wiggins, and the mandolinist Lino Muoio.

Down at the Crossroads got the opportunity to chat to Corey about the new album and about his music in general.

He told me, first of all, that he’d wanted to show his roots and let people understand know where he’s coming from. “I’ve done a lot of different excursions over the years,” he said, “but this is my foundation. So, I wanted to re-inscribe that into people’s memory banks; that this is what it’s about.”

So you’ll find interpretations of songs by the likes of Rev. Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James and Charlie Patton, all performed with passion by a skilled guitarist and singer.

In dealing with such a wide scope in the tradition, I wondered how he goes about selecting a particular song and then making it his own?

“I try and be faithful to the form of the song, how it’s supposed to be played and the recognizable licks, if you will, but at some point, you can’t ever play it just like the version you’re learning – at least I can’t. So that’s where my own creativity and character comes in. Because, you know, you’re gonna sound like you!

“In these the traditional songs, I really try and be faithful to the musical presentation of the song, how it’s sung and the rhythm, unless I’m really trying to do something that is adding to it and doing a totally different version – but I normally don’t do that. Some artists will take, say, a Skip James tune and make it totally different, but I’m not really into that. I’m really into trying to interpret a song through my own filter if you will.”

Corey Harris has been performing, rootsy, bluesy music for a long time now. I asked him what is it about this music that is so important to him.

“Well, I would say that this music connects us to our ancestral heritage in America. And it also opens eyes to the realities of what we’re dealing with. You know, the blues is like our CNN, it is what is happening. It’s the news, you know what I mean?

“So, with the times as they are, I just really felt it was important to get back to the basics about the strengths in the culture, and that’s why I was looking at the different song forms and the different varieties within that culture. Nowadays a lot of times, in the popular context, people assume black culture is gonna be hip-hop, or Lil Uzi Vert or something, but it’s actually quite deeper than the commercial varieties we’ve been conditioned to accept. So, I wanted to show really where it’s coming from, and try and do a survey, not only of how I see the music, but of the last hundred and fifty or so years of it.”

This coheres with what Harris has previously said of Insurrection Blues, that it “is an unflinching look at desire and destruction in 21st century America…as an African American living in America, as a descendant of slaves that built this country, I am looking at the survival mechanisms that have existed for people to persevere in difficult times. And when we think about that, the blues always comes to mind.”

“Yeah. There’s a tendency in the popular press and even in academia, to typify the blues and say it’s this sad music about being drunk and losing your woman. But it’s actually so much more than that. And so, I just want to show that the blues is a textbook for life. It’s just like any other great art, it describes the condition of man and woman in all the different situations in life. So that’s what I’m trying to show. Also, that this is a rich tradition and it’s not anything that can be easily diluted or reduced into simple song forms and like, a skinny tie and a hat, you know what I mean? It’s more than that. And that’s what I wanted to show.”

The blues, clearly, grew up in the context of terrible injustice suffered by Black communities. But, I suggested to Corey, the music and the form, and the spirit seems to be something that has a very broad application and appeal, so that there are all sorts of people all around the world who feel drawn to it.

“Well, you know, we all struggle. That’s why we’re here, to struggle and to overcome, as human beings. We can all relate to that journey of struggle and overcoming, in our own way, because it’s not all equal and not all the same. We all have our own different little histories, but we all have that same feeling of, you know, it’s hard, but finally, I’m victorious. Let’s look back and celebrate how hard it was.”

The blues always seem to have that double edge about them – a lament for the way things are, but hope that things might get better. You see it in so many of the songs, where the singer seems to be able to sing his or her way out of the blues feeling.

“That’s it, being able to see the sun on the horizon and being able to get that strength you need to see the next day and to persevere and to keep going. This is the tradition. It wasn’t a tradition that people did for money. There was no profession back in the days with the ancestors of blues singers, blues performers – I’m talking, like, before the Chitlin’ circuit, before the recordings of the twenties, before Mamie Smith. There was no occupation of blues singer, people did it because they had to, because this is what their culture showed them – how you can deal with the things that the world is giving you, all the oppression and all the Black codes, the lynching, you know, all of that. So, this is a tool for survival is the way I see it.”

Harris was profoundly disturbed (along with most other right-thinking people) about the events in Washington at the beginning of 2021. He has said, “When I saw the insurrection, I saw how race and history collided there.” So Insurrection Blues directly channels his feeling about all this – “I felt there was a duty, a responsibility, to use the craft to say something.”

As I listened to the album, any message of resistance is not very explicit. Somebody could listen to the album and miss that. So I wondered, for Corey as an artist, how explicit or otherwise does he feel he needs to be about issues that he feels are important?

“Well, I think it depends on how you feel at the time emotionally. There are some issues that kind of speak for themselves, and you can make a commentary very easily on them. With the insurrection, depending on your political persuasion, you’re gonna see that event through drastically different spectacles, you’ll have a different perspective. And also, depending on your ethnic origin, with your ethnic history in America, you’ll have a very different perspective on this event. So yeah, there’s some resistance in it, because just the act that I’m here alive is proof that there was resistance.

“Because the system wasn’t built so that I would thrive. But also, this project is like an analysis of where we’ve been, where we are and what might happen in the future. If you listen to the record, there’s an interlude to the song Insurrection Blues, which is some audio of the actual crowd at the insurrection. And then after there’s the sound of thunder and lightning; and then the sound of rain, to symbolize that there needs to be sort of a cleansing. This is a storm, and then after a storm, the clouds go away, the sun comes out and things are fresh and clean. So, that’s what we’re going through. We’re going through a purging right now.”

Prefaced by this short interlude, the title track, Insurrection Blues (Chickens Come Home to Roost), becomes a powerful commentary on the infamous storming of the Capitol, such a symbolic emblem of American democracy. As the storm fades and the rain washes things clean, Insurrection Blues kicks in, a minor key blues. The lyrics are not explicit, but the repeated, ominous minor key riffs on the guitar are the repeatedly intoned, “it’s time to get wise” and “chickens come home to roost” make the point well enough.

It comes right in the middle of the album, and although the songs on either side might just be taken as enjoyable interpretations of acoustic guitar blues numbers, Harris has cleverly drawn attention to his African American blues tradition as pointing to both the struggles and the survival of his community.

On a more general note, I asked Corey about the re-emergence of acoustic blues back in the 1990s when he was starting out. Before that there had been a lot of electric blues for several decades.

“Yes, there was a renaissance of acoustic blues. I think the Columbia Records release of the Robert Johnson box set around 1990 had a lot to do with that. And then, shortly after that Keb’ Mo’ came out with his record on Sony’s OKeh Records – it was on a major label and made a big splash. So those two things had a lot to do with it. And then just by happenstance, I came along, Alvin Youngblood Hart came along and so did Guy Davis. And people were realizing, wow, black people still play the blues and they still play acoustic blues! And they realized that this is part of their culture. So it was a great confluence of events at that time.”

And what is the popularity of blues music, particularly in the United States. What, I wondered, is Corey’s sense of the people and the demographic listening to this music and the more traditional forms of it?

“My sense is that there are people my age – I’m in my early fifties – and older who are listening to this music and coming to these shows. The blues market is still people who buy CDs at shows. They’re not really downloading as much as other genres yet. So we’re kind of oldies but goodies blues people, as far as the fans go!” Harris is encouraged, though, by some of the younger talent coming up, like Jontavious Willis and Buffalo Nichols, whom he referred to as “a really monster guitar player.”

Along the way, Corey Harris has played with a lot of wonderful artists from both North America and Africa. I was very interested to hear about his experience of playing with B.B. King in the 1990s.

“I opened up for BB about 75 times around the world, over the years from about ‘95 until about 2005. I was around him quite a lot over the years and what I observed was he was very professional. He put the music on a level where you just had to respect it because the way that it was presented was first class. And very well mannered, very diplomatic, well spoken. You know, it was really like royal, like he was aptly named. You really felt, wow, I’m with somebody who’s putting their art on the top shelf. And so you felt inspired being around him because you felt wow, I got to raise my standards.

“He was someone who came from nothing, but he just dedicated himself to his craft. He studied a lot, he practiced a lot and he elevated his craft so that you just had to respect it for what it was. That’s what I really loved about him. And then he engaged people really well – he talked to you like you mattered and he was interested in you. He was a good people person. Just great being around him and you know, his stories – he had stories about hanging out with Satchmo in the fifties. He said Satchmo used to cook him bread, beans and rice backstage! And he had stories about hanging out with Miles Davis and Charlie Parker. And thinking of that, he used to tell me, ‘Stay away from drugs!’ But I’m like, don’t worry. I don’t do drugs!”

Corey Harris is a multi-talented guy. Not only is he a successful and talented musician, but he’s the author of several books and is currently doing a PhD (he already has an honorary doctorate in music).

“I’m in the music department in the University of Virginia and I’m studying all sorts of different things. Some are things that I didn’t know a lot about, for example, 17th and 18th century classical music.  But my main thrust is music of black resistance. So that could include anything from capoeira to blues, to jazz to music associated with Santeria. So I’ve really whittled it down. But that’s what I’m really interested in – black music of the Americas, of the Atlantic, of the black diaspora.”

As well as studying, Harris is teaching as well, working with university classes along with renowned jazz writer Scott DeVeaux. All of this is sure to find its way into future Corey Harris performances and recordings.

At the moment he’s planning an album in collaboration with Cedric Watson. “He’s a great Louisiana, old-school Creole player who plays a violin and a push button accordion. He also plays banjo, so he’s an excellent talent. We’re going to do a duet record. We both speak French, so we’ll do some French songs and some Creole songs, so, it’s gonna be good!”

And Corey has a book just recently published, Blues People Illustrated.

“People can buy that on my website at Nattyworks.art. It’s fifty-one blues artists, men and women, the cool, all-traditional blues artists, mainly those who were active from the 1920s through the blues revival of the sixties. Each artist has a drawing of them and I’ve written a biography of the artist and included a complete discography as well. So it’s a kind of reference book.

“So those who don’t really know about the specific genre of traditional acoustic blues, the pre-war, can learn about people like Son House, Tommy McClennan, Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey. And even little-known people like Hacksaw Harney, Precious Bryant or John Jackson. I talk about people that I knew as well – Cephas And Wiggins are in there, and Brownie and Sonny.”

One worth checking out as well as the terrific Insurrection Blues.

Blues Artist Interviews: Five things We Learned

“Where there is light there is hope; and where there is hope, there’s a chance”
Jimmy Carter, Blind Boys of Alabama

During 2021, we had the opportunity to speak to 15 great blues and roots artists, as well Mark Carpentieri of M.C. Records and Tim Duffy of the Music Maker Foundation. All of them, plying their trade, entertaining us, at times challenging us, against the significant odds posed by the pandemic. Each of them doing what they do with determination, grace and even joy. Pick any one of the interviews if you feel in need of a little inspiration – go ahead, you’ll come away feeling just a bit better about life.

So, looking back, what did we learn from talking to each of these exceptional people?

1. Age is no barrier to following your dream.
Several of the people I talked to are in their eighth or ninth decade of life. A time when many people just want to sit back on the sofa and start watching daytime TV, thinking their best days are behind them. Not so with people like Jack Ward or Elizabeth King, who at 83 and 77 respectively had just released their first solo albums and were looking forward to going on the road to promote them. Or Maria Muldaur, in her late seventies, who teamed up with a bunch of young people to record Let’s Get Happy Together, the most upbeat, cheerful album I heard all year. She told me simply, “you have a choice every day – you can be bummed out of you can be happy.” Atagirl, Maria! And I love the positivity in Bryn Haworth’s Boom Baby Boom, which he wrote about getting older: “you’ve got one life and so much left to give…there’s still time for one more dance.”

Jorma Kaukonen

Jorma Kaukonen, now turned 80, told me he was just about to embark on a new tour with Hot Tuna. He has just released a new album and has been performing regularly online from his Fur Peace Ranch during the pandemic. He told me performing was “just as energizing as it ever was.”

And then there’s Jimmy Carter of the Blind Boys of Alabama, who’s 88 and has just released Blind Faith, a terrific album of Americana/gospel songs – his first solo album – and who told me that he hopes the album “will energize people and change lives.” Now that was impressive – Jimmy’s still wanting to be a blessing to others.

2. Music can be a great vehicle for not only entertaining us, but challenging us.
Guy Davis, Eric Bibb, and Leyla McCalla didn’t make protest albums, but they included songs that highlighted injustice and made us think about our response to that. Davis’s God’s Gonna Make Things Over about the Tulsa Massacre and Eric Bibb’s Emmett’s Ghost dealing with the murder of Emmett Till both used historical tragedies to shine a light on the present. And Leyla McCalla’s stark Song for a Dark Girl, about a lynching “way down in Dixie” is as arresting as Strange Fruit. She told me that music isn’t some sterile environment where an artist can simply be apolitical. Musicians want to entertain us; we want to be entertained – but music, the blues in particular, has always been an important way for artists to comment on what is going on around them, and to help us all to see the injustice that many of us, in our comfortable lives, might miss or ignore.

3.Faith is a vital life-force for quite a number of these artists.
Jimmy Carter told me “my faith is strong” and “when it gets rough, I pray.” He and Elizabeth King and Elder Jack Ward have had considerable challenges in their lives, but each told me how important their faith in God was for them. Jack Ward came from a life of poverty as a sharecropper and told me “when you weak, God will make you strong; when you lonely, he would never leave you alone.”

Elizabeth King

Ms. King, who also grew up picking and chopping cotton, told me the incredible story of how God had healed her after a horrific injury from a drunk driver; now she says, her job “is just to encourage people…when you’re going through something, just turn to God.” Maria Muldaur told me she’s being going to her neighbourhood African American church for the last 40 years and is inspired by joyful worship.

Bryn Haworth, slide guitarist par excellence, who’s featured on the albums of a who’s who of top rock artists, as well as having an excellent back catalogue of his own, spends a lot of his time visiting prisons and talked about the “amazing stuff” he’d seen happen through prayer. His vibrant faith shone through our conversation – a faith, which, incidentally, has him on a mission to save the trees in England, about which he has a song on his new album.

4. Blues music is alive and kicking.
It may have been around for more than a hundred years now, but artists old and young are breathing new life into the genre all the time. Mark Carpentieri of M.C. Records spoke of his optimism as he looked around at the blues and roots scene and saw people “taking the blues and gospel and making it their own.”

Grainne Duffy, a young Irish guitarist and singer, who’s performed on stages with Keb’ Mo’ and Van Morrison, has recorded an outstanding album, Voodoo Blues, with a set of original songs that both tap deeply into the legacy of the blues and breathe positivity. Joanna Connor, whose terrific 4801 South Indiana Avenue was produced by Joe Bonamassa and is packed with raw, high energy musicianship, is one of today’s great electric guitarists. She told me she was “fleshing out” stories as she played the songs, and making them sound epic in the process. She talked about the joy in the blues, despite the hardship out of which they emerged and the way they speak to the human emotion, And Carolyn Wonderland, the blistering Texas guitar-slinger, just finishing a stint in John Mayall’s band, whose vocals and guitar work on Tempting Fate are positively spine-tingling, talked about the fun and joy in making her music.

5. And the blues is a worldwide phenomenon.
Yes, the blues are founded on the experience of African Americans, and are deeply rooted in the souls of people like Guy Davis and Eric Bibb. And Tim Duffy, through his Music Maker Foundation, is working hard to preserve the tradition of unsung Southern musicians and present them to the world – he talked about the “very special people” in the communities he works with and the need to “amplify their voices” and promote “cultural equity.”

Ireland’s Grainne Duffy

But I talked to Paul Cowley, an Englishman living in rural France, playing traditional acoustic blues – which he discovered relatively late in life and was smitten with; and to Mark Harrison, another Englishman, whose story-telling blues reflect deeply on the human condition; to Leyla McCalla, whose family roots are in Haiti; to Grainne Duffy from Ireland; to Bert Deivert, an American who’s lived most of his life in Sweden, and who says “it’s the soul of it, the emotion, which drives me.” Eric Bibb, of course, has also made his home in Sweden for many years.

All these people are doing more than just keeping the blues alive – they are, of course, deeply drawing from the well of music and blues feeling from the past, but as well, lyrically, they are applying the blues to new and current situations, and musically, they are either forging new directions or keeping it fresh by their talent, dedication and musicianship.

There are links to all the interviews below for you to read and enjoy:

Jorma Kaukonen: “The good life is more than material stuff…”
Bryn Haworth: Still time for one more dance
Jimmy Carter: And his Blind Faith is a ray of hope
Carolyn Wonderland: Is Tempting Fate
Bert Deivert: His story-telling blues
Eric Bibb: “Everything can change if we believe”
Elder Jack Ward: From sharecropping to soulful singing
Elizabeth King: Living in the Last Days is a gift for us all
Mark Harrison: His Unique Talent
Maria Muldaur: Wants us to get happy with her
Guy Davis: Hits a rich vein of creativity
Paul Cowley: Long Time Comin’ – but more than worth it
Tim Duffy: “A glorious awakening of musical tradition”
Joanna Connor: “The blues is honest music”
Mark Carpentieri: Optimistic about the future of the blues
Leyla McCalla: Making Music that Matters
Grainne Duffy: Drenched with the blues and Southern soul.