Rating: “Indispensable” (ie. “a must” or “essential” – their equivalent of SIX STARS!!!)
“A collection as unique, faithful and virtuosic as the one whose legacy it perpetuates, this is the album that every John Hurt fan will enjoy savoring to their heart’s content.”
Full review:
Five years after their remarkable “Meet Me In The Middle” (reviewed HERE ), the on-stage and off-stage duo of the esteemed singer & guitar-picker Erin Harpe and bassist Jim Countryman return with a tribute to the legendary Mississippi John Hurt, who passed away in 1966 at the age of 73. The long career of this weekend singer-songwriter in his native Avalon, Mississippi, only achieved widespread success during the folk-boom revival of the 1960s, but his influence and repertoire continue to be passed down from generation to generation. While his most famous fans include artists such as Stefan Grossman, Rory Block, and Jorma Kaukonen (as well as, in France, Paul Cowley, Manu Slide, Cadijo, Julien Biget, and Cisco Herzhaft), it was through her guitarist father that Erin discovered this giant of the acoustic six-string in her childhood. Passionate about Hurt, he frequently played many of his songs at home, and like its predecessor, this album was recorded by Erin and Jim in their home studio in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. Opening with the popular “Candy Man” (which Hot Tuna celebrated on their first album, the “Live At The New-Orleans House, Berkeley” of 1969) and the equally well-known “Casey Jones”, we savor with delight, in addition to the alert finger-picking of Madame and the omnipresent bass of Monsieur, the characteristic and slightly roguish timbre of an Erin capable of highlighting with a simple intonation the double entendres of these laments not always as innocent as they seem. The title track (“blues out on the ocean, blues out in the air/ can't stay here no longer, but I've got no steamship fare” ) along with the less frequently performed “Got The Blues (Can't Be Satisfied)” ( “whiskey straight, drive the blues away/ that be the case, give me a quart today” ) and “Richland Woman” sit alongside “Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor” (recently covered by Julien Biget and Margaux Liénard, reviewed HERE), as well as “Nobody's Dirty Business,” which Hurt recorded as early as 1928 for Vocalion. The murder tunes “Frankie & Johnny” (whose title is singularly shortened here to the first of these names) and “Stagolee” ultimately lead into the much more jovial standard “You Are My Sunshine.” A collection as unique, faithful and virtuosic as the one whose legacy it perpetuates, this is the album that every John Hurt fan will enjoy savoring to their heart's content.
(Written by Patrick Dallongeville.)