Friday, August 21, 2015

CD Preview: Ironing Board Sam’s Super Spirit

Ironing Board Sam's Super Spirit
Since hooking up with the good folks at the Music Maker Relief Foundation in 2010, blues legend Ironing Board Sam has been making up for lost time. After the non-profit outfitted the flamboyant musician with new gear, Sam has been hitting the road and the recording studio alike, releasing four critically-acclaimed albums under the Music Maker banner in four years.

The 75-year-old bluesman isn’t done yet, nosirree…on October 2nd, 2015, Big Legal Mess Records (a subsidiary of Mississippi’s esteemed Fat Possum Records) will release Ironing Board Sam’s Super Spirit, a new ten-track collection produced by Big Legal Mess head honcho Bruce Watson and roots ‘n’ bluesman Jimbo Mathus at Watson’s Dial Back Studio in Water Valley, Mississippi.

Ironing Board Sam is backed on Super Spirit by a band that includes Mathus on guitar, bassist Stu Cole (Squirrel Nut Zippers), and drummer Barrett Martin (Screaming Trees). In his role as producer, Watson drew inspiration from classic 1960s and ‘70s era singles, pulling out songs by Ann Peebles, the Gories, Mathus, Jack Oblivian, and Roy Hawkins, among others for Sam to wrap his soulful voice around. The result is Super Spirit, a lively collection of blues, soul, and rock ‘n’ roll with a funky undercurrent that’s guaranteed to blow your mind!

Born Sammie Moore in Rock Hill, South Carolina in 1939, Sam got his nickname by strapping his keyboards to an ironing board hanging from his neck, allowing him to move around on stage. Way back in ’62, Sam’s band included a red-hot guitarist who would become known as Jimi Hendrix, and throughout the 1960s and ‘70s he released a number of singles for Atlantic Records and numerous soul labels, and was a regular guest on the Night Train TV show.

Although Sam scored some regional hits through the years, he wouldn’t release a debut album until 1996’s Human Touch. An earlier album, Ninth Wonder of the World of Music, which Sam using as a sort of calling card with promoters, was recorded in the 1970s but not released commercially until 2011. With Super Spirit, Ironing Board Sam is building on a legacy decades in the making. Check out Sam’s “Baby You Got it,” a track from Super Spirit, embedded below. You’re welcome…

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Ironing Board Sam's Super Spirit


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