Charlie Musselwhite – Mississippi Son

17-06-2022

Charles Douglas Musselwhite (born January 31, 1944) is an American electric blues harmonica player and bandleader, one of the white bluesmen who came to prominence in the early 1960s, along with Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield. He has often been identified as a "white bluesman". Among the most celebrated harmonica players in the blues, Charlie Musselwhite rose to fame as part of the blues-rock explosion of the mid- to late '60s. Despite that, while he hasn't been averse to collaborating with rock musicians, his heart has always been firmly rooted in the blues, and his sound is a potent, muscular blend of rootsy Delta blues influences and the harder-edged tone of classic Chicago blues (a fitting blend given his formative years in Memphis and Chicago). Musselwhite is also a performer whose passion is matched by solid technique, and after overcoming an addiction to alcohol in the late '80s, he welcomed the most productive and popular period of his career after more than two decades in the music business. Though his allegiance to the blues is strong, he knows how to fuse his style with a wide variety of artists; few other instrumentalists of any stripe could successfully record with John Lee Hooker, Cyndi Lauper, and Tom Waits. Highlights of his recording career include his striking debut on 1967's "Stand Back ! Here Comes Charley Musselwhite's Southside Band"; 1993's "In My Time", the best of his early-'90s comeback albums for Alligator Records; 2000's "Up and Down the Highway Live : 1986", one of the best of his many live albums, and 2013's "Get Up !", the first of two collaborations with Ben Harper that won the veteran bluesman his first Grammy Award. They followed with "No Mercy in This Land" in 2018. "100 Years of Blues" followed in 2020, and "Mississippi Son" landed in 2022. Musselwhite's story reads like a classic blues song: Born in Mississippi, raised in Memphis and schooled on the South Side of Chicago. A groundbreaking recording artist since the 1960s, Musselwhite has never stopped creating trailblazing music while remaining rooted in the blues. He was born into a blue-collar family in Kosciusko, Miss., on Jan. 31, 1944, and raised by a single mother who moved the family to Memphis when he was a child. Musselwhite grew up surrounded by blues, hillbilly and gospel music he heard on the radio and saw being played by neighborhood musicians. As a teenager, he worked as a ditch digger, concrete layer and moonshine runner. Fascinated by the blues, Musselwhite began playing guitar and harmonica. He crossed paths with many of the local musicians, including Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Johnny Burnette, but the celebrities young Charlie sought out and befriended were Memphis' veteran bluesmen like Furry Lewis, Will Shade and Gus Cannon. Following the path of so many, Musselwhite moved to Chicago, not to pursue music but simply looking for better paying work. While driving an exterminator's truck as a day job, he hung out in city's South Side blues clubs at night. He befriended blues harmonica giant Big Walter Horton and became especially close with venerated country bluesman Big Joe Williams. For a time, he shared an apartment with the famously cantankerous Williams and occasionally performed with him (and recorded with him for Arhoolie Records in 1969). He often roamed the streets with Big Walter, and joined him in the studio in 1965 for Vanguard's acclaimed "Chicago/The Blues/Today !" series. His other friends included blues icons Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson and Howlin' Wolf. Musselwhite soaked up licks, lyrics and life lessons at every opportunity. Before long, he was sitting in at clubs with Muddy Waters, Magic Sam, Earl Hooker, Jimmy Reed and others, building an impressive local word-of-mouth reputation. With "Mississippi Son", Charlie Musselwhite shines a glorious spotlight on the blues he first fell in love with, and delivers extraordinary, moving performances that come straight from his deep South soul. "Mississippi Son" is the new recording by a venerated legend of the blues, Charlie Musselwhite. Charlie's been recording since the 1960s, and has cut almost 40 albums. But this one is special. Rather than featuring his brilliant, endlessly creative harmonica playing backed by a full electric band, Mississippi Son focuses on Charlie's deep-in-the-Delta guitar playing (both acoustic and electric) and his soulful, sly storyteller's vocals. His famed harmonica and a subtle rhythm section join with his guitar and voice to enhance some of the tracks. "Mississippi Son" was released on June 3, 2022 on Alligator Records. Charlie has just moved from California back to Clarksdale, Mississippi, and this back-to-the-roots album is a loving celebration of his Mississippi blues heritage. He's included songs by iconic country bluesmen Charley Patton, Big Joe Williams and Yank Rachell, as well as eight arresting originals steeped in the tradition. Mississippi Son is Charlie's most intimate and nuanced record. Few other people have such a deep knowledge and love for Delta blues. Charlie was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi and raised there and in Memphis. He learned at the feet of legends like Furry Lewis, Gus Cannon and Will Shade, and, after moving to Chicago as a young man, from his friend, playing partner and roommate, the often-irascible Big Joe Williams (to whom he dedicates a song on this album, recording with one of Joe's guitars). Charlie had no thought of becoming a professional blues musician. He simply loved the music and wanted to absorb and understand not just the techniques and styles of the old masters, but also the hardscrabble life experiences that inspired their songs, as well as the attitude which they brought to their performances and to their daily lives. It was only after coming to Chicago in the early 1960s that Charlie started focusing on his harmonica playing, under the tutelage of the great Big Walter Horton. Charlie became a popular local musician and recorded with Big Walter on the famed "Chicago/The Blues/Today !" series on the Vanguard label. The success of those records led to his being signed by Vanguard and cutting his first album, "Stand Back ! Here Comes Charley Musselwhite's South Side Band". That was the album that launched his career, a career that has lasted almost 60 years and produced nearly 40 albums and thousands of gigs around the world. Charlie left Chicago, traveled the world and settled down in Northern California. But his Mississippi roots kept calling to him, leading to his recent move to Clarksdale and the recording of this album in a Clarksdale studio. With "Mississippi Son", Charlie Musselwhite shines a glorious spotlight on the blues he first fell in love with, and delivers extraordinary, moving performances that come straight from his deep South soul. "Mississippi-born, Memphis-raised, Grammy-winning music legend Charlie Musselwhite doesn't just sing and play the blues; he is, in every sense of the word, a bluesman. Growing up, he not only learned the music first-hand from many of the genre's most influential artists, he also absorbed the lifestyle. "It's an attitude," Musselwhite says of playing the blues. "A way of living life." Over the course of his six-decade career, Musselwhite has released nearly 40 albums. He is renowned worldwide as a master harmonica player, a seasoned, truth-telling vocalist and an original songwriter rooted deep within the blues tradition. As many of his fans know, he's also a country blues guitarist of great depth, warmth and subtlety. On his new Alligator Records release "Mississippi Son", Musselwhite, in addition to playing his famed harmonica, features his guitar work throughout the entire album. On each of "Mississippi Son"'s 14 songs, including eight powerfully stark originals, Musselwhite's straight-from-the-soul vocals and melodic blues harmonica playing are the perfect foil to his deceptively simple, hypnotic guitar work. Having recently moved back to Mississippi from northern California, Musselwhite recorded the stripped-down, haunting, emotionally raw performances in Clarksdale, in the heart of the Delta. From the autobiographical opener 'Blues Up The River' to his plaintive reading of Charley Patton's 'Pea Vine Blues' to his deep-in-the-tradition instrumental 'Thinking Of Big Joe' (on which he plays his friend Big Joe Williams' guitar), each song echoes Musselwhite's Mississippi roots and reflects his personal take on the world around him. Whether he's reimagining The Stanley Brothers ('Rank Strangers') or creating a song based on a vision ('When The Frisco Left The Shed'), or personalizing John Lee Hooker's 'Hobo Blues', his honest, soulful vocals, like his every-note-matters harmonica playing and idiosyncratic guitar work, overflow with hard-earned authenticity and lasting emotional intensity. Musselwhite calls his blues "secular spiritual music," a sound he's been perfecting since he, as a young teenager, played his first E7 chord on his Supertone acoustic guitar. Upon hearing and feeling the chord's blue note, the future blues master thought, "I have to have more of that." With 2010's The Well, Charlie Musselwhite returned to Chicago's Alligator Records after a 14-year absence to release what was then his most autobiographical album to date. For over a decade he issued homegrown projects on his Henrietta label, including 2012's "Juke Joint Chapel" and two dates with Ben Harper (2012's Grammy-winning Get Up and 2018's "No Mercy in This Land"). He cut the Grammy-nominated "100 Years of the Blues" with Elvin Bishop. All these records travel a labyrinthine path to "Mississippi Son". Recorded in Clarksdale, Mississippi, he was born in Kosciusko, and moved to Clarksdale after decades elsewher, it features eight originals and six covers offering a portrait of life as a bluesman. He leads a trio with drummer Ricky Martin and upright bassist Barry Bays on several tunes, while the rest is performed solo. Musselwhite plays harmonica and sings, but for the first time since 2006's "Delta Hardware", he plays guitar throughout. Co-produced by Gary Vincent and wife Henri Musselwhite, Mississippi Son is humid and swampy, it rolls rather than rocks. Musselwhite's guitar-playing style is reflected beautifully in opener "Blues Up the River", loose, slippery, and subtle. Things get a bit woolier on a reading of Yank Rachell's "Hobo Blues." Musselwhite reflects John Lee Hooker's immortal version with a simmering, sinister, groove. "In Your Darkest Hour" is a paean of personal redemption via the power of love, offered solo to an individual during a time of difficulty. He lightens the mood for "Stingaree," another solo track. His road-weary baritone flows atop harmonica and guitar lines, expressing his devotion to the beloved: "She might not sting for you/but she's always buzzin' me ...." On the solo instrumental "Remembering Big Joe," Musselwhite plays the guitar of his late friend, Big Joe Williams, and renders two sides of the Delta blues in his choogling read of Charley Patton's "Pea Vine Blues" with the band, and a sensual version of Hooker's immortal "Crawling King Snake." Musselwhite is a canny songwriter, able to relate his entire autobiography in a two-minute, shuffling, electric country blues. The band grooves under one of the most poignant lines in this history of blues poetry: "Blues tells the truth in a world that's full of lies ...." He counters with the shadow side of that identity on the harrowing "My Road Lies in Darkness," and pulls out a slide for a deep blue read of the Stanley Brothers' high lonesome folk song "Rank Strangers." Closer "A Voice Foretold" is a haunting blues spiritual written by playwright/lyricist Lee Breuer and pianist/composer Bob Telson for their play The Gospel at Colonus. It's a prophetic look into the face of death and doesn't flinch. In his laconic Southern drawl, Musselwhite sings with acceptance, placing his hope in a loving, merciful God. The bookend to the journey he began with "Delta Hardware", "Mississippi Son" is an unromanticized testament to living the blues and sounds like it came from the soil. As such, it's a late-period masterpiece. The 14-track set included eight Musselwhite originals. Playing harmonica and guitar on each track, he was backed by drummer Ricky Martin and Barry Bays on upright bass.

A1. Blues Up The River 2:35

A2. Hobo Blues 2:11

A3. In Your Darkest Hour 3:27

A4. Stingaree 2:23

A5. When The Frisco Left The Shed 2:45

A6. Remembering Big Joe 4:02

A7. The Dark 3:04

B1. Pea Vine Blues 3:41

B2. Crawling King Snake 4:11

B3. Blues Gave Me A Ride 2:23

B4. My Road Lies In Darkness 3:19

B5. Drifting From Town To Town 3:07