Genre: Blues
Rate: 320 kbps CBR / 44100
Time: 01:17:17
Size: 176,68 MB
Review by Bruce Eder
This album is a joyous yet painstakingly authentic modern recreation of blues styles prevalent during the late '20s and early '30s, and Al Cook could have been a potential rival to John Hammond, Jr., based on the evidence here -- as it is, he sounds like he's channeling the sounds of Paramount Records from its early-'30s heyday. He plays unamplified, mostly on the guitar (though he does switch to piano on a couple of cuts), accompanied here and there by harmonica, spoons, a drum, and maybe a rhythm guitarist.
His influences in playing and singing are Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton, and Son House, all of whom seem to be almost voicing their stuff, seance-like, through him. His playing is technically superb, but even more important is the fact that Cook seems to feel the music in his playing and singing, to the point where he even gives convincing spoken introductions and performances that don't seem incongruous at all. Done on a portable four-track unit, the material also gets about as near to the jerry-rigged set-ups used to record the likes of Patton and Jefferson as one is likely to approach in modern time.
Anyone who wants more of the kind of work that Hammond was doing on Vanguard Records in the early/middle-'60s will not go wrong with this disc, which is a loving recreation of authentic Delta blues sounds of the early '30s, unaffected and honest in its execution.
01 - Bad Boy Blues 02:37
02 - Georgia Blues 04:15
03 - Mississippi Blues 03:06
04 - Blue Prayer 02:53
05 - The Sunday Suit 03:36
06 - My Baby Left Me This Morning 03:03
07 - St. Luis Woman Blues 03:47
08 - I'm Down Blues 03:11
09 - Mister Blues 03:59
10 - East Cost Rag 02:09
11 - Mean Old Alabam' 03:51
12 - The Worried Blues 02:40
13 - Cook It Up 03:19
14 - Down South 03:42
15 - Beale Street Breakdown 03:02
16 - Bad Things On My Mind 03:49
17 - Mississipi River Blues 02:37
18 - Let Me Be Your Honeydripper 02:24
19 - My Sweet Lovin Mama 03:58
20 - At The Barrelhouse 03:49
21 - Washboard Boogie 02:12
22 - No Kind Hearted Woman's Slave 02:17
23 - The Bluebird Blues 03:31
24 - Death Valley Blues 03:30
