(Back Porch Records)
The old bluesmen are not gone; in fact, they sound better than ever. That is, if you care to give a listen to John Hammond's recent release, .
Hammond's career stretches back to the early '60s, when he stepped on stage at the Newport Folk Festival with Mississippi John Hurt and the Reverend Gary Davis. Over the years, Hammond rubbed elbows with John Lee Hooker, Jimi Hendrix and The Band. With 28 albums behind him, Hammond managed to craft another gem with .
Hammond has put out a blues album that combines electricity and dust, fusing his gravel-and-moonshine voice with guitar riffs that sound like the Mississippi Delta singing. shows that the blues is old-fashioned enough to be eternal and only needs to be as contemporary as an echo.
Hammond goes to Tom Waits' \Gin Soaked Boy"" to show the blues in all its swagger and style. The song gets its mood from a shotgun shack and dirt roads overgrown with weeds. Lines like ""I came home last night / Full a fifth of old crow / You said you goin' to your ma's / But where the hell did you go"" come through with angry heartache and perfectly pitched American vernacular.
Hammond chips in one of his own songs, ""Slick Crown Vic."" With ample frustration, a car crafted in chrome and a girl across the street, the song has enough testosterone and tenacity to recall Hammond's influences like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf.
fulfills the old formula of the blues. It is all about a good man feelin' bad. The album cries and hollers with pain and diesel fuel tears. It is bounded on one side by the greatest genre of American music and on the other side by Hammond's creatively calm execution of his craft.
