Friday, July 17, 2009

M for Mississippi (Vol. 1), various real live blues artists, Broke & Hungry Records

I have a policy, when Broke & Hungry Records releases a CD, I buy it. These guys find and record bluesmen, primarily from Mississippi, who have, for the most part, never been touched, sadly, by attention much beyond their communities nor commercial considerations (not so sadly, although I wish they could receive the financial recompense they richly deserve without it). In short, whatever they release is "pure" blues from the state and region that's always been the major wellspring for said.

So when they did an award-winning DVD documentary about the artists with whom they have worked and subsequently released not one, but two discs of the music from it, I was on the hook. Blues you say? Try I'm a Bluesman from Terry "Harmonica" Bean. And then you have Black Mattie's Face from the Mississippi Marvel and Lightnin' Malcolm and Hip Shakin' Woman from T-Model Ford and Stud. This stuff is frigging as blue as it gets. Give It All to Me, Baby from Cadillac John Nolden and Bill Abel and The Woman I Love from Pat Thomas? Blue, blue, blue. Bring It on Home from the Robert "Bilbo" Walker Band is soul with a lot of blues flavoring it. Rosalee from L.C. Ulmer is pure Delta right out of Charlie Patton. Hey, the CD just ended. Think I'm playing it again?

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