Muddy Gurdy Feat Cedric Burnside, Cameron Kimbrough, Pat Thomas, Sharde Thomas

Muddy Gurdy
Feat Cedric Burnside, Cameron Kimbrough, Pat Thomas, Sharde Thomas
VizzTone

This intriguing recording brings together a French trio (Hypnotic Wheels) with several of the most prominent living players of Mississippi North Hill Country Blues. Hypnotic Wheels is comprised of Tia Gouttebel on vocals and guitar; Gilles Chabenat on the hurdy gurdy, a French traditional instrument and Marco Glomeau on percussion and is inspired by French traditional music as well as the North Mississippi North Hill Country Blues with the hurdy gurdy serving as a second guitar. Their first album alternated original songs with revisited blues. Marco, the percussionist, got this crazy idea: take the hurdy-gurdy to Mississippi and this recording is the result.

After a brief instrumental, we hear four field recordings with Cedric Burnside (and one can hear dogs barking in the background) as they launch into a mesmerizing treatment of RL Burnside's "Goin' Down South," with Cedric and Tia alternating vocals with some spellbinding single note guitar runs against a drone musical background. After the performance ends Cedric talks about times with his brother Cody who died at 29 before going into "The Girl is Bad," with its somewhat jerky groove and slashing slide guitar. This is followed by a high stepping "See My Jumper Hanging On the Line," with the French trio adding their congenial, if unusual sound to this spirited performance of another RL Burnside song. Cedric further shows how well he continues in the manner of his father on "Rollin' and Tumblin'."

Shardé Thomas adds vocals and fife to a vibrant rendition of "Station Blues" (a retitled "Sitting on Top of the World," with Glomeau providing the fife and drum band groove with Tia and Gilles adding their buzzing backing. It is followed by a haunting "Shawty Blues,"and the spiritual "Glory, Glory Hallelujah." Cameron Kimbrough then leads us on a lively rendition of "Leave Her Alone," from his father Junior Kimbrough," set against the mesmerizing backing, while his own "Gonna Love You," is a tough performance in a similar vein.

Pat Thomas' "Dream" has a wistful quality while the hurdy gurdy of Chabenat provides a somber fiddle-like backing. It is followed by the trio's own interpretations including a rendition of Jesse Mae Hemphill's "She Wolf," recorded at Dockery Farms, along renditions of Mississippi Fred McDowell's "Shake 'Em On Down," and B.B. King's recording, "Help The Poor." One wonders Jesse Mae Hemphill might have thought of her music influencing this French singer and guitarist, who does a more than simply capable job in singing and performing these. Pat Thomas, sounding like his father, James 'Son' Thomas, closes this album at the Highway 61 Museum (with traffic in the background) with a simple, stark and moving "Standing at the Crossroads/Dust My Broom" mashup, titled here "Highway 61."

While this won't replace the classic recordings of Fred McDowell, RL Burnside, Jesse Mae Hemphill and Junior Kimbrough, the Hypnotic Wheels has produced a fascinating, enjoyable and idiomatic recording that pays homage to their musical influences. It presents the current practitioners of this tradition with emphatic backing that is so much more appropriate to the music than most efforts to modernize (or commercialize) this tradition. This is a recording that brings pleasure everytime I listen to it.

I received from VizzTone. Here is a short clip relating to this recording.

A Drive Down The Blues Highway

Catfish & Cotton: Driving Down The Blues Highway by brothers Luc & Marc Borms is a self-published, wonderfully illustrated account of their journey to the heart of the delta blues culture through their experiences visiting Delta landmarks and their interviewing artists, merchants, scholars and others involved in the Delta Blues scene today.

The Borms brothers, both blues musicians from Belgium, made this Trans-Atlantic trek to the area that is the heart of the music that has so engrossed them as they (among other things) spent two days in Clarksdale; went to Hopson’s Plantation where Jon Gindick conducts a harmonica camp; visited the grave of Sonny Boy Williamson II; stayed at the Riverside Hotel; spent night’s at the juke joint, “Red’s Lounge”;visited the Delta Blues Museum and Cat Head and had a beer at the Ground Zero Club; Helena, Arkansas; Memphis and Beale Street: Oxford, Mississippi; Leland Mississippi; and Avalon Mississippi.

The brothers interviewed Jon Gindick, who has become well known for his harmonica instructional material to describe the camp he holds; Frank ‘Rat’ Ratliff, owner of the Riverside Hotel which was a hospital prior to becoming a hotel; Roger Stolle, who operates Cat Head , a store of folk art as well as a record label, Broke & Hungry; Heidi Hockenhauer, MC of the Delta Family Gospel Festival held in Helena; Blind Mississippi Morris, blues harmonica player and singer; Laurie Montalnaro, staff member of the Memphis Rock’n’Soul Museum; ‘Sunshine’ Sonny Payne, longtime host of the King Biscuit Time Radio Show; Cristen Craven Barnard, painter and mural artist; Adam Gussow, harmonica player and educator; Bill Abel, guitar builder and player; Randy Magee of the Highway 61 Museum; Eddie Cusic, Delta blues musician; Super Chikan, blues musician and others. I was particularly pleased to see the interview of Cusic, who I myself interviewed in 1991 when I saw him life Festival at the Smithsonian FolkLife Festival who is such a strong performer of classic Delta blues.

This book is wonderfully illustrated by the brothers’ photography of various blues landmarks, persons and some performance shops. Illustrations and inserts give information on towns and cities, landmarks including Hopson’s Plantation; the Riverside Hotel Cherry Street in Helena; Sonny Boy Williamson II’s grave; the Homemade Jamz Band and more. I was particularly moved by pictures of Pat Thomas, including one of him holding a guitar and singing while sitting in front of the grave of his father, James ‘Son’ Thomas. And they weave their narrative in which the interviews, and other materials are placed. 

The layout of all this material is quite attractive and reading is enhanced by the layout and use of 4 column text where text is printed. It will be valuable as a guide book for places one might wish to visit when one travels in the Delta as well as a document of the music today and the community in which it persists and thrives in. It is a marvelous book that will appeal to anybody with an interest in the blues and the land from which it sprung.

I became aware of this book from participation in The Real Blues Forum, a Facebook Group that Marc participates. The link for this book is www.catfish-and-cotton.com, which will take you the brothers store on lulu.com, the website that allows books to be self-published. The brother’s store link is http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/infoatcatfishandcottondotcom and can choose from a standard Black and White Edition, or the more expensive Deluxe Edition which is published in color. It is a 184 page, perfect bound book, 9 inches wide by 7 inches tall. I purchased the more expensive paperback edition. I have included for this blog a couple of the sample pages that you can view at lulu.com website for this book.

Here is a little clip of Eddie Cusic & Luc Borms filmed during the Catfish & Cotton tour.