First of all, the sound on this album is delightfully clear, allowing you to hear every note and lyric perfectly. The songs represent a good selection of Hurt’s songs, some very familiar, some less so.
Lovers of acoustic music and country blues will enjoy this album.
Erin Harpe has been a fan of Mississippi John Hurt’s music since she heard her father playing it when she was a little girl. Influenced by Hurt’s finger-picking style, Erin got reacquainted with Hurt’s catalogue of music when invited to participate in a fundraiser for the Mississippi John Hurt Foundation in 2023; inspired by that, she set about making her own tribute to his music, recording in her home studio. Erin plays acoustic guitar and sings, her partner Jim Countryman adding ukelele bass. Erin reprises nine of Hurt’s tunes, plus one tune that he used to cover, “You Are My Sunshine”.
First of all, the sound on this album is delightfully clear, allowing you to hear every note and lyric perfectly. The songs represent a good selection of Hurt’s songs, some very familiar, some less so. We open with “Candy Man”, one of Hurt’s best known songs; often delivered in lascivious manner, Erin takes a more subtle approach to the suggestive elements in the lyrics. Jim supplies an appropriate train whistle to introduce “Casey Jones”, one of several adaptations of the tale of the heroic railway engineer. Less familiar is the title track “Let The Mermaids Flirt With Me” which has a light touch from both players, in contrast to “Got The Blues (Can't Be Satisfied)”, one of the more uptempo numbers on the album.
“Richland Woman” is another title with which I was not familiar but Erin breathes real life into the tale of a woman who seems quite ready to betray her husband: “Come along young man, everything’s sittin’ right, my husband gone away till late Saturday night.” Far better known are “Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor” and “Frankie”, the former given a jaunty country blues treatment, the latter Hurt’s version of the tragic tale of star-crossed lovers Frankie and Johnny, very well played by the duo. “Nobody's Dirty Business” is a very close relative of “Ain't Nobody's Business” and, of course, the tale of Stagger Lee is a classic of the genre, here dubbed “Stagolee”; both tunes are again brilliantly rendered. The album concludes with “You Are My Sunshine”, first a hit for its composer Jimmie Davis who went on to became the governor of Louisiana, where the song is now the state song. Recorded many, many times, this American classic was also covered by Mississippi John Hurt and Erin and Jim celebrate that connection here.
Lovers of acoustic music and country blues will enjoy this album.
(Written by John Mitchell.)