BUKKA WHITE: BIG DADDY (1974)
1) Black Cat Bone Blues; 2)
1936 Triggertoe; 3) Crying Holy Unto The Lord; 4) Shake My Hand Blues; 5) Sic
'Em Dogs On; 6) Gibson Hill; 7) Mama Don' 'Low; 8) Hot Springs Arkansas; 9)
Jelly Roll Morton Man; 10) Black Crepe Blues; 11) Glory Bound Train; 12) Aberdeen
Mississippi Blues; 13) Hobo Blues.
While this album, recorded just three years
prior to Bukka's demise from cancer, corrects the blunder of Memphis Hot Shots, no longer trying to
recast the artist in a wholly unsuitable image, I cannot honestly say that Big Daddy generates much inspiration.
Unless you have pre-generated yourself the mindset of "big old blues
legend with acoustic guitar = I'm loving it!", I am not sure that these
recordings could serve as a good introduction to the world of archaic country
blues in general, or Bukka White as its particular representative.
Here he is, all on his own with nothing but the
guitar to provide company, running through a selection of the usual classics,
mixed in with a few obscurities or rearrangements (ʽJelly Roll Morton Manʼ is
the same as ʽGibson Hillʼ, with a new set of lyrics — and, come to think of it,
ʽHobo Bluesʼ is also the exact same song). As the man gets ever older, his
voice gets ever gruffer and closer to that Howlin' Wolf standard, but that's
just the problem: it doesn't quite
rise up to the same standard, but it does reduce all of the songs to just about
the same emotional state, roughly translated as «don't mess around with the man»,
which is not how it used to be in pre-war
years.
Likewise, Bukka's guitar playing is not what it
used to be. «Deteriorating» is not the right word for it, since he can still
send off those slide runs like he used to, and slap those strings with the same
brute force when necessary. But something seems missing — I'm not exactly sure
what, but maybe that would simply be the will to come up with free-flowing
guitar phrasing on the spur of the moment, rather than relying on «fossilized»,
thoroughly predictable stock lines. Naturally, this cannot be construed as an
accusation — nobody really expects an inventive, energetic pulse from a 65-year
old bluesman — but it also means that, whatever the popular stereotype might
be, a young bluesman with a guitar is still generally preferable to an old
bluesman with a guitar. Especially when the old bluesman's guitar starts
getting rather dangerously out of tune towards the end of the session...
Anyway, the bottomline is simply that there is
nothing «wrong» with Big Daddy, but
forty minutes of it will most likely get you bored, and it will add nothing to
your understanding of the man and his history, except formal proof that the man
did retain enough vocal and instrumental competence right up to his final
years. But you probably could guess that as it is, couldn't you?
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