Turchi is Reed Turchi, boss of North Carolina's Devil Down Records who brought you the new Kenny Brown double-disc set, the Bill Ferris recordings of Mississippi Fred McDowell, a new release by long-time Junior Kimbrough sideman Little Joe Ayers, and a couple other very worthy works.
On his first solo album Turchi, who is based in Chapel Hill and plays guitar and sings,Chris Reali (a musicology student at UNC-Chapel Hill) on bass, and Cameron Weeks (Blackskies) on drums, and the group is joined by the great Luther Dickinson on three tracks. The Lutherized songs, in particular Dr. Recommended (Satisfaction Guaranteed) has a wealth of swagger. Luther brings it, and it's hangin'.
Turchi brings a Dylanesque-tone to Road Ends In Water akin to Bob's more recent work (I'd bet money a very discerning Dylan would dig this album) filtered thru Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside alumnus Kenny Brown. Reed Turchi could almost be, as Brown was to Burnside, Kenny's adopted son. That's not to say Turchi is aping. That's not it. But Kenny is a predominant and fine flavor. Turchi is a tight band and I'd be very interested to see/hear them live. Reed and his friends have made a fine first album that reps them well. I look forward to hearing the next album after they've had a chance to get some serious roadwork under their collective trotters. This is original and very solid North Mississippi hill country (and delta blues reworks) that should satisfy any fan. You can get it HERE.
A conglomerate (kəŋˈɡlɒmərɨt/) is a rock consisting of individual clasts within a finer-grained matrix that have become cemented together.
Earl "Little Joe Ayers is a conglomeration of Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside, T-Model Ford, Son House, and Little Joe Ayers. .44 (I Wore My .44 So Long) by DevilDownRecords Backatchya was recorded on the front porch of the home of former R.L. Burnside guitarist Kenny Brown. It was recorded by Reed Turchi (Devil Down Records boss) and mixed in Memphis at the famed Ardent Studios. Ayers sounds like he's in the room with you as you listen.
Ayers brings a firm and strong, yet almost pretty, touch to the guitar. Where Junior Kimbrough got weird with one chord, R.L. Burnside was groovin' and dirty, and T-Model is slashin' and rubbing, Ayers' picking is tough and lovely. Ayers played bass for Kimbrough for years so covers of Junior abound on Backatchya, but played in Ayers' deft, well-picked style. Little Joe Ayers sounds best to me sitting at my desk, the volume not too high, so I can really hear him. Vinyl would be even better. It makes me listen to what he's playing and really hear just how good he is. But you have to be able to slow down, come sit and listen to him. I think you'll be moved.
Good ol' Jeff Konkel at BrokeandHungryRecords (whose entire catalog you should own or be ashamed of yrself) just turned me on to the premier release by North Carolina's Devil Down Records called Mississippi Fred McDowell : Come and Found You Gone- The Bill Ferris Recordings. Recorded over the course of a night in August of 1967 with the assistance of Mr. McDowell's wife Annie Mae and Napoleon Strickland. This is an all acoustic set recorded at the home of a friend of the McDowell's. A field (sans field) recording with all the inherent sounds of life one would find in that type of situation. This recording shines and breaths and welcomes you into the room to sit and hear the north Mississippi master up close and very personal. Close your eyes and, like a 3D movie, you'll feel you can reach right out and touch Mr. McDowell's slide hand as it glides and grinds up and down the neck his acoustic and feel his breath in the mic. Eighteen tracks including an interview with Bill Ferris and a spirited conversation between Mr. and Mrs. McDowell.
From the Devil Down Records site: These recordings are different from any other of Fred McDowell due to their very nature: rather than conducted with the production of a record in mind, the recordings were made casually over the course of a night. McDowell is here heard at his best, relaxed and energetic, performing many of his most famous songs as well as songs never before heard. With his foot tapping on the hardwood floor and laughter in the background, “Come and Found You Gone” brings the listener into that hot night in August, 1967, immersing them in the world of the blues house party, and guiding them through the night as it unfolded… The 18 track album includes a 16 page booklet featuring liner notes from blues researcher and Rolling Stone Magazine top 10 Professor Bill Ferris, Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars, and leading French blues scholar Vincent Joos. This booklet also contains a dozen award-winning photographs taken by Bill Ferris in 1970 at Otha Turner’s 4th of July picnic in Potts Camp, Mississippi.
This is an essential recording that I know all my friends will love.
Mississippi Fred McDowell- Letter from Hot SpringsMP3
"...and what makes it so good is that everybody is original, everybody has their own taste of the blues. Their own feeling of the blues. Their own form of the blues. Told in that way, that's what makes it historical - it will never die."
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Truth.
"...authenticity without evolution isn't authenticity, but mimicry. And not terribly authentic or interesting at all." -Ted Drozdowski
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And, of course, that is what all of this is -- all of this: the one song, ever changing, ever reincarnated, that speaks somehow from and to and for that which is ineffable within us and without us, that is both prayer and deliverance, folly and wisdom, that inspires us to dance or smile or simply to go on, senselessly, incomprehensibly, beatifically, in the face of mortality and the truth that our lives are more ill-writ, ill-rhymed and fleeting than any song, except perhaps those songs -- that song, endlesly reincarnated -- born of that truth, be it the moon and June of that truth, or the wordless blue moan, or the rotgut or the elegant poetry of it. That nameless black-hulled ship of Ulysses, that long black train, that Terraplane, that mystery train, that Rocket '88', that Buick 6 -- same journey, same miracle, same end and endlessness." -- Nick Tosches, Where Dead Voices Gather
"My songs, they have just the one chord, there's none of that fancy stuff you hear now, with lots of chords in one song. If I find another chord I leave it for another song." -Junior Kimbrough
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