Archive Review: The Fabulous Thunderbirds’ Live (2001)

An institution among American blues-rockers, the Fabulous Thunderbirds have undergone a number of changes during a quarter-century long career, not all of them positive or encouraging. With the release of this energetic live album, however, Kim Wilson and his blues posse seem to be back on track with a high-octane “greatest hits” set that revisits old T-Birds classics as well as outlines a potential roadmap for the band’s future.

Live was recorded at a special event in February 2000, a private party of 200 friends and fans on hand to hear the band make history with their “This Night In L.A.” internet broadcast. The show was captured as one of the first high-resolution multi-track recordings made of a live performance, and the quality shows in the CD version offered on Live (the show is also available on DVD). The material chosen by the Thunderbirds for this broadcast includes the usual mix of guitar-driven Texas blues and soul-infused R&B tunes. The band throws out inspired covers like the rollicking “My Babe” and the potent “The Things I Used To Do” alongside choice originals such as the hit “Tuff Enough” and “I Believe I’m In Love.” Wilson’s baritone vocals always hit the mark and guitarist “Kid” Ramos stands tall with stellar leads that evoke memories of his predecessors Jimmie Vaughan and Duke Robillard while retaining an original character and identity.

Live is an infectious collection of songs, a 90-mph romp across the blooze-rock landscape that will leave the listener breathless and thirsting for more. The Fabulous Thunderbirds have long been a favorite on the performance circuit, their reputation built on muscular, dynamic live sets and bandleader Wilson’s soulful selection of material. The Live CD lives up to and furthers the T-Birds’ reputation as one of the best bands you’ll ever see perform onstage. (CMC International, released 2001)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine

Archive Review: Dead Kennedys’ Mutiny On the Bay (2001)

The Dead Kennedys never released a live album during their brief yet notorious career as America’s favorite hardcore bad boys. The legendary punk outfit’s incendiary live performances have nevertheless been well represented by a handful of bootleg albums and videos, the best of which is probably Jello’s Revenge (Armed Response Records), culled from San Francisco club shows in 1979 and 1985. Mutiny On the Bay is the first “authorized” DK live disc, part of Manifesto’s reissuing of the Dead Kennedys’ catalog under the aegis of band members East Bay Ray, D.H. Peligro, and Klaus Flouride and against the wishes of vocalist/songwriter Jello Biafra, who has disavowed the reissues.  

Dead Kennedys’ Mutiny On the Bay

Mutiny On the Bay presents not a single entire performance but rather pieces of four different shows that date from 1982 and 1986. The original soundboard tapes have been digitally remastered but manage to retain a fair degree of their original energy and grunge. I hate to disagree with my old buddy Jello, who has publicly dissed Mutiny On the Bay, but this is a hell of a collection. A veritable “who’s who” of DK’s greatest hits, this fourteen song set offers those of us who never got to witness the band live a taste of what bootleg videos only hinted at.

Almost all the great DK songs are here, from “Police Truck” and “Kill the Poor” to “Hell Nation” and “MTV – Get Off the Air.” The energy in these tracks is undeniable; Biafra’s warbling, operatic vocals jumping out of the speakers above East Bay Ray’s slashing six-string work. One of the band’s signature songs, “Holiday In Cambodia,” offers some fiery fretwork courtesy of East Bay Ray while the Flouride/Peligro rhythmic assault that opens “California Uber Alles” provides powerful punctuation to Biafra’s angry vocals. The production seamlessly stitches together the performances; often tying songs together with Biafra’s onstage comments and smoothing out the rough edges so that the entire collection sounds like one lengthy performance. Perhaps some of the spontaneity is lost in this digital translation, but the quality of these performances shine through nonetheless and there is plenty of feedback and stage noise present for the purist.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

There are some good Dead Kennedys’ bootlegs still circulating around in trading circles, but Mutiny On The Bay puts most, if not all of them to shame. If all you know of the Dead Kennedys is their reputation, then Mutiny On The Bay, coupled with the band’s incredible debut, Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables, are perfect introductions to the band’s legacy. Let’s hope that Manifesto has some other live material of this quality stashed away in the vault for future release. The Dead Kennedys were one of the most influential hardcore punk bands of the 1980s; their importance based on live performances like those captured by Mutiny On The Bay. Let’s hear some more! (Manifesto Records, released 2001)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine

Archive Review: Mad For The Racket’s The Racketeers (2001)

Wayne Kramer is a survivor in every sense of the word. From the legendary MC5 in the 1960s through collaborations with Mick Farren (The Deviants), Deniz Tek (Radio Birdman), and Johnny Thunders in the 1980s and ‘90s to Mad For The Racket, his new project, Kramer has enjoyed a lengthy and impressive music career. If most of his almost forty years in the biz seem to have been spent at odds with the establishment, that’s their problem, not his. As Kramer enters his fifth decade as an artist and musician, he does so with a new CD, a new label, and some old friends.

Mad For The Racket’s The Racketeers

Primarily a collaboration between Kramer and former Damned/Lords of the New Church axeman Brian James, Mad For The Racket also includes the instrumental contributions of Blondie drummer Clem Burke and former Guns ‘N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan. Stewart Copeland sits behind the kit for a song or two, as does longtime Kramer drummer Brock Avery. The Racketeers is a guitar showcase, however, and in spite of the impressive credentials of the various rhythm-makers, it is the slash-and-burn dueling six-strings of Kramer and James that dominate the proceedings. Swapping red-hot riffs and vocal duties, much like Kramer did with Tek on the excellent Dodge Main CD, the two guitarists are similar enough stylists to make these songs work. They differ enough in their approach, however, that they manage to create some live-wire tension in the grooves.

Wayne Kramer/MC5

The sound cranked out by Mad For The Racket is standard hardcore roots rock, filled with razor-sharp ribbons of six-string work, thundering rhythms, and old school punk attitude. The material here is not that dissimilar from that which Kramer kicked out on a trio of studio albums for Epitaph, overlooked classics that showcased his vastly underrated guitar style and ever-maturing songwriting skills. On The Racketeers, Kramer and James share the songwriting duties, sometimes resulting in a dud like the heavy-handed “Prisoner of Hope,” with Kramer’s over-the-top vocal histrionics mangling hackneyed lyrics. Kramer has done better on his own with similarly themed material. More often than not, however, the pair has created winners like the dark, disturbing “Tell A Lie,” the seedy “Czar of Poisonville” or the blazing “Chewed Down To the Bone.”

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Kramer’s vocals are always adequate, unique, and easily identifiable, flawed but forceful. James’ pipes are weaker but meet the challenge of the material, sometimes sounding like former bandmate Stiv Bators; other times – as on the lively “I Want It” – James sounds like a young Iggy Pop. Both play the guitar like maniacs, loco mosquitoes hell-bent on tearing down the walls with the sound of their axes alone. Together, the two grizzled rock ‘n’ roll veterans have created an entertaining and hard-rocking collection of songs, an album that showcases their strengths and furthers their already considerable legacies. The Racketeers is the sound of punk rock entering middle age, and for Wayne Kramer and Brian James, they refuse to go quietly into that good night. (MuscleTone Records, released 2001)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine

Archive Review: Peter Tosh’s Live & Dangerous Boston 1976 (2001)

When the reggae is mentioned to the casual fan, the first name that comes to mind is Bob Marley. If the person is really into the “island riddims,” then they might throw names like Jimmy Cliff or Steel Pulse at you. An original member of the Wailers with Marley, Peter Tosh is the ultimate reggae cult artist – popular enough to attract new fans to his music years after his death, but too hardcore and edgy to appeal to a mainstream audience. Whereas Marley softened his songs of struggle and liberation with a healthy dose of melody and “peace and love” styled lyrics, Tosh was raw, politically outspoken, and brutally honest, sort of the “punk rocker” of Jamaican reggae.

Peter Tosh’s Live & Dangerous Boston 1976

To many of his fans, Tosh’s uncompromising stance and undistilled sound were part of the artist’s charm, and his albums from the ‘70s – classics like Equal Rights and Legalize It – stand up well to repeated listening today. Unlike his former bandmate Marley, Tosh’s musical catalog has remained fairly static, which makes the release of Live & Dangerous Boston 1976 a treat for the longtime fan. For his first American tour, in support of his debut album, Tosh assembled a band that included both Jamaican and American musicians, and which he subsequently dubbed “Word, Sound and Power.” Beginning with bassist Robbie Shakespeare and drummer Sly Dunbar, the greatest reggae rhythm pairing that the genre has ever seen, Tosh added the lead guitars of New Jersey native Al Anderson and bluesman Donald Kinsey. Twin keyboards were provided by Earl “Wire” Lindo and Errol “Tarzan” Nelson, with vocals and rhythm guitar from Tosh, and thus the stage was set for as dynamic a reggae band as you could ever ask for.

Live & Dangerous Boston 1976, taken from a November performance in nearby college-town Cambridge, is more-or-less typical Tosh. One of the most outwardly political of the Rasta artists, Tosh was a strong lyricist who wrote of the struggle of the poor and dispossessed against the police, the government and the corporations that oppressed them. You’ll find a healthy dose of political content here; songs like “400 Years,” “Babylon Queendom” and “Mark of The Beast” among some of the best that Tosh has written. There are some laid-back performances as well, songs like “Burial” or “Ketchy Shuby” featuring mellow Rasta grooves matched by winsome vocals heavy with island patois, and there are the usual spiritual numbers like “Igziabeher (Let Jah Be Praised).” The band is phenomenal, tight as the proverbial drum, providing the proper backdrop for Tosh’s charismatic and electric performances.
    

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Peter Tosh’s Live & Dangerous Boston 1976 is a fine documentation of a night’s performance by one of reggae’s most important artists. One minor cavil must be expressed, however – the eleven songs presented here time out at seventy-five minutes and change, but only seem to scratch the surface of the night recalled by former Tosh manager Herbie Miller’s liner notes. Where are the performances of “Legalize It” or “Apartheid,” important songs from the Tosh canon and both from the album he was touring to promote? Perhaps a double-CD set clocked at 90 minutes might have served Tosh fans better? This oversight would gladly be overlooked if Legacy digs up, and releases some other vintage Tosh performances from their vaults. (Legacy Recordings, released 2001)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine

Archive Review: Corporate Avenger’s Freedom Is A State of Mind (2001)

With the departure of Zach de la Rocha from Rage Against the Machine, the other members of the band are left merely whimpering at the machine while other outfits steal the thundering sound they made their bones with. Although the musical landscape is littered with the corpses of a thousand and one metal-tinged hip-hop Rage wannabes (Fred Durst, your 15 minutes are up buddy…), the band’s social consciousness and politikal rage lives on in Corporate Avenger. With the explosive Freedom Is A State of Mind, Corporate Avenger lyrically tackle the gamut of social issues, matching their incendiary lyrics with muscular riffs, ringing chords and blistering rhythms.

Corporate Avenger’s Freedom Is A State of Mind

Fueled by the powerful twin lead vocals of the Corporate Avenger (Spike Xavier) and Adawee the Wind, Corporate Avenger is a conceptual band, mixing radikal politics with extreme performance art and musical chops that include elements of heavy metal, hard rock, rap, and punk. I hear strains of Black Flag, Govt. Issue, and Public Enemy in these grooves, the music created by Mike Kumagai and producer Daddy X from the Kottonmouth Kings. Like no band since Public Enemy, Corporate Avenger blazes new trails, creating a sound that is both familiar and totally unlike any band that you’ve heard before. Raucous and obnoxious, Corporate Avenger throws caution to the wind with wailing guitars, lightning-quick turntable scratching courtesy of DJ Hall of Records, anarchistic samples, big beats, and monster rhythms.

It’s the band’s lyrics that capture the imagination, though; perhaps the most controversial anti-capitalist screeds ever committed to a musical treatment. Although a major label deal allowed Rage Against the Machine to bring the band’s radikal worldview to a mainstream audience, there was always an uneasy vibe around their act, a feeling that they might have watered down the message to slip it past their corporate masters. There’s no such feeling with Corporate Avenger – this is the real shit, as hardcore as a Molotov cocktail and as dangerous as a rabid Doberman. Freedom Is A State of Mind leaves no sacred cow unslaughtered, bludgeoning the listener with sound and imagery that preaches an undeniable message of tribal brotherhood even while it damns the system that keeps people poor, confused, and uneducated.

An Alternative History Lesson

The songs on Freedom Is A State of Mind are intelligent, well researched, and articulate. The band doesn’t merely mouth leftist platitudes, but explain the reason for their perspective with their lyrics. Whether singing about the oppression of the Native American (“Christians Murdered Indians” “$20 Bill”), the corrupt nature of organized religion (“The Bible Is Bullshit”) or the social injustice and racial implications of the “war on drugs” (“FBI File”), their lyrics are consistently challenging and though-provoking. Sometimes they seem to purposely piss people off, like with “Jesus Christ Homosexual” which asks if the so-called savior might have been a homosexual. By mixing two mythological Christian icons (Jesus and the degenerate homo) in one song, Corporate Avenger manages to bait the fundamentalist Christian right while providing food for thought for the rest of us.  

Every track here is like an alternative history lesson as given by Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn, Corporate Avenger cramming more academic information into a four-minute rock song than many young listeners walk away with after four years of college. As the band states in the liner notes to Freedom Is A State Of Mind, “the songs are written in the language that we speak every day, it is not intended to be offensive. While this message is for everyone, this record may not be.” The controversy surrounding the band has led hypocritical Christian groups like the Promise Keepers and the American Family Organization to work towards pressuring retailers to keep the CD out of their stores. The band currently receives 10 to 20 death threats each week, no doubt from these “good Christians,” and several cable networks, including MTV and Comedy Central have refused to air advertising for the album.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Although Corporate Avenger is making the right enemies, their message deserves to be heard. Critics usually dismiss politikal rock bands out-of-hand, stating that music and politics don’t mix and lyrics don’t influence anybody, anyway. I strongly disagree with this perspective. Freedom Is A State of Mind is a turning point for rock music, a revival of social consciousness after too many years of mindless pop bullshit and corporate-crafted “modern rock.” With Freedom Is A State of Mind, Corporate Avenger is providing a soundtrack for the new millennium, one that is aggressively pro-human being and anti-government and anti-corporation. This is music to riot by and this is one critic who is ready to throw the first stone. (Koch Records, released 2001)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine 

 

Archive Review: Perry Ferrell’s Song To Be Sung (2001)

Regardless of his alt-rock pedigree, this humble scribe has never thought much of former Jane’s Addiction/Porno For Pyros frontman Perry Ferrell. He possesses a powerful and expressive voice and, aided and abetted by guitarist Dave Navarro, managed to create a unique sound with Jane’s Addiction that would influence a generation of bands. In an attempt to always be the smartest kid in class, Ferrell managed to people his songs with the worst sort of pretentious lyrical garbage that his unfettered id could put on paper. Song Yet To Be Sung is no different, really, Ferrell merely providing his new age English lit lyrics with a different underlying soundscape. It is this music that makes Song Yet To Be Sung work as an album, however, Ferrell’s delusions of poetic grandeur notwithstanding.

Blending alt-rock riffs with Worldbeat rhythms and a heavy dose of technologically-assisted electronica, Ferrell has created a lush musical structure on which to layer endless guitars, drums, and keyboards. Ferrell’s voice is simply mesmerizing on songs like “Happy Birthday Jubilee” or “Say Something,” soaring through the mix while musical contributors like Dave Navarro, Ray McVeigh, Krish Sharma, and Brendan Hawkins lay down a rhythmic, trance-like groove. Sort of like an advertising jingle that gets stuck in your mind, Song Yet To Be Sung is contagious, a guilty pleasure that you have to give in to. Although Perry Ferrell is still up to his old tricks while he continues to search for the perfect beat, Song Yet To Be Sung is a welcome musical oasis along his journey. (Virgin Records, released July 16th, 2001)
 
Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine

Archive Review: The Strokes’ Is This It (2001)

New York City rockers the Strokes have been on the receiving end of massive bloato-hype, mostly from the British music press. Proclaimed the saviors of rock ‘n’ roll, the overabundance of critical enthusiasm directed towards the Strokes is understandable. In a world populated with pop pap and watered-down “modern” rock, old-school rockers such as myself (and, presumably, rockcrits at NME, Mojo, and Q) thirst for the real thing. Luckily, the band’s much anticipated debut lives up to almost every promise made for the Strokes.

The Strokes’ Is This It

Roaring out of the “Big Apple” with a slack-rock sound that is firmly based in the garage band vibe of the 1960s and ‘70s-styled D.I.Y. punk fervor, the Strokes are a revelation. Vocalist Julian Casablancas sounds like a youthful Lou Reed and affects an on-stage wardrobe that mimics a young Bryan Ferry. Guitarists Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr. keep a steady flame burning throughout the songs with ever-present riffs that result in a virtual wall-of-sound. A strong rhythm section of bassist Nikolai Fraiture and Fab Moretti build a solid bottom line; together the instrumentalists create a fat, dense and sometimes chaotic signature beneath Casablancas’ vocals. Kudos are also due to producer Gordon Raphael, whose subtle hand captured the band at its grungy best, warts and all. No Pro Tools manipulation here – Raphael leaves the sound muddy and noisy, the vocals often struggling above the mix and the entire affair wheezing and rattling like my aging ’74 Mercury four-door.

“What about the music,” you ask? Think of the Replacements minus Westerburg’s melancholy, the Velvet Underground with Ron Asheton on guitar, and Brill Building pop filtered through the New York Dolls and you’ll come near hitting the mark. I don’t understand half of what Casablancas is singing about, but when you can make out his lyrics, you’re overwhelmed by the verbal gymnastics and clever wordplay. The material on Is This It rocks without qualification. An irregular rhythm kicks off “The Modern Age,” a New Values-era Iggy soundalike with a wire-taut guitar lead and driving instrumentation. “Barely Legal” has a nifty circular riff and muddy, echoed vocals and bittersweet lyrics while “Someday” has some ultra-cool doo-wop rhythms and pleading vocals. “New York City Cops” offers some tongue-in-cheek humor about New York’s finest, a story-song with a raging chorus and wickedly delicious rhythms.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

In the wake of September 11th tragedy, RCA pulled the original recorded version of Is This It and substituted in the place of the stronger “New York City Cops” lest listeners feel that the band was overly-critical of the N.Y.P.D. They also replaced the more attractive cover artwork available on the British import in favor of a psychedelic swirl cover for the U.S. market. The music stands on its own regardless of these feeble marketing ploys, and there are still plenty of copies of the import disc to be found (and well worth getting even if for the one song). In the tradition of other cult-rockers like the Dictators, the Flamin’ Groovies or the New York Dolls, the Strokes draw inspiration from the primal wellspring of sound and energy from which classic rock ‘n’ roll is born, commercial considerations be damned. (RCA Records - U.K. import, released August 27th, 2001)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine

Archive Review: Cyndi Lauper's Twelve Deadly Cyns (1994)

I’ll never forget the first time that I heard Cyndi Lauper’s classic “Girls Just Want To Have Fun.” Friend Thom and myself were in a local electronics store looking at the brand-new Sony vertical turntables (yes, it was that long ago...). Back in those days, MTV was new to Nashville, and still a curiosity, so the store had one of their big screen televisions hooked up to cable and running the music network. From across the large showroom, I heard the first strains of the song, which pulled me in front of the screen. Thom soon joined me as the song, and its anarchic accompanying video, introduced us both to the talent of Ms. Cyndi Lauper.

Over a decade later, and “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” sounds every bit as wild, fresh, and wonderful as it did that afternoon in the hi-fi store. Lauper’s has her share of ups and downs since the early ‘80s, but she was – and is – no one hit wonder. A string of hits followed the success of “Girls Just Want To Have Fun,” great songs like “Money Changes Everything,” “Time After Time.” and “True Colors.” Lauper’s debut album, She’s So Unusual, went on to multi-platinum status, as did her sophomore effort, placing Lauper alongside Madonna as the dominant female artists of the decade. She went on to earn a fair degree of notoriety among fans of pro wrestling for her connection to Hulk Hogan and the WWF’s “Rock ‘N’ Wrestling” promotion before going “Hollywood” and sinking into the obscurity of bad film.

Lauper has been quietly orchestrating a comeback the past couple of years, with last year’s Hat Full of Stars album – as unrecognized as it was – being as fine an album as she’s ever recorded, proving again that Lauper sings as good as she ever has. The recent U.S. release of Twelve Deadly Cyns is a fine step towards a new appreciation of Lauper’s talents for, given my money, there are few artists recording today with her natural grasp of the style and substance of the classic pop/rock genre.

Released in Europe to a fair degree of commercial acceptance earlier this year, Twelve Deadly Cyns is a Lauper greatest hits album and more. All of the above-mentioned hits are present, as are other early Lauper gems like “She Bop,” “Change of Heart,” and “All Through the Night.” A mere handful of cuts are taken from her third and fourth albums, such as “I Drove All Night” from A Night To Remember and “That’s What I Think” from Hat Full of Stars. A couple of fine unreleased songs are thrown in, including an inspired revisiting of her trademark tune, titled “Hey Now (Girls Just Want To Have Fun).”

Even more so than her self-inflicted zany image and undeniably charismatic personality, Lauper’s immense vocal skills have always been her main selling point. Coupled with an almost otherworldly ability to pick and choose the best material from well-known as well as obscure songwriters like Tom Gray, Robert Hazard, and Essra Mohawk, Lauper reputation as a first class artist and performer deserves a long overdue rediscovery. Perhaps Twelve Deadly Cyns will lead the way to a well-deserved renewal of Lauper’s stalled career. (Epic Records, released 1994)

Review originally published by R.A.D! (Review and Discussion of Rock ‘n’ Roll) zine

Archive Review: Blind Willie Johnson’s Dark Was the Night (1998)

Although revered by folk and rock artists like Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and Led Zeppelin, seldom does Blind Willie Johnson’s name come up in conversation when people talk about the giants of the blues. One reason for this, perhaps, is that Johnson’s songs hewed closer to the gospel roots of the blues than those of his musical contemporaries. Another reason for Johnson’s relative obscurity was his personal struggle for salvation that would cause him to turn his back on “the devil’s music.”

Regardless, Blind Willie Johnson’s catalog of songs – many derived from the church hymns of his youth – stand up alongside any of the early-era bluesmen, and have been covered by artists as diverse as the Rev. Gary Davis, Son House, Hot Tuna, and the Rolling Stones. Johnson’s haunting vocals often times mimic the glossolalia, the “speaking in tongues” of the fundamentalist church. Johnson also developed a unique and powerful slide-guitar technique that modern-day artists have tried to master for decades.

Blind Willie Johnson’s Dark Was the Night

A sixteen-song compilation that includes some of Blind Willie Johnson’s best performances, Dark Was the Night is part of Sony Legacy’s late ‘90s Mojo Workin’ series of blues releases. The album’s namesake, “Dark Was the Night (Cold Was the Ground)” is the heart of any Blind Willie Johnson compilation, the song included on a “sounds of the earth” recording that was shot into space with the Voyager One space probe. For good reasons, too, was this song chosen as one of humankind’s best moments to introduce to whatever life may exist elsewhere – Johnson’s performance here is as otherworldly as you get.

Recorded solo by Johnson in December 1928, the song opens with a weeping slide-guitar run that will chill your blood, followed quickly by Johnson’s mournful moan, a non-verbal expression of emotion that needs no words. By contrast, the gruff “Lord I Just Can’t Keep From Crying,” recorded in session just a couple of days later, is a fierce, determined gospel-blues foot-stomper that features Johnson’s roaring vocals rising above his serpentine slide playing. His wife, Willie B. Harris, provides higher-pitched backing vocals that stand in stark counterpoint to Johnson’s growling voice.

It’s Nobody’s Fault But Mine

Dark Was the Night features many of Johnson’s gospel-oriented tunes, which are uniformly graceful and dignified. Some stand out, though, exemplary performances like that of “Let Your Light Shine On Me,” recorded in 1929, sitting a little closer to traditional folk hymns while others, like the incredible “John the Revelator,” existing on an entirely higher level. With Harris once again accompanying, Johnson’s inspired vocals here truly jump out of the grooves to grab you by the ears. With just a perfunctory rhythm guitar soundtrack, Johnson delivers a powerful, feverish performance of the tradition song that would later inspire the great Son House to try and duplicate it on his own.

Johnson’s “It’s Nobody’s Fault But Mine” is one of his better-known songs and, since its release in 1928, has become a blues standard. Johnson’s vocals here are often slurred, reduced to grunting out the words with a religious fervor while his stellar guitar work sounds like a heavenly chorus. Although suffering somewhat by sub-standard sound…probably taken from an old 78rpm record rather than whatever master may have survived…“The Soul of A Man” is an upbeat, spiritually-charged essay on man’s place in this world, Johnson’s soulful, earthbound vocals complimented by Harris’s more ethereal harmonies.     

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

There are a number of Blind Willie Johnson compilation albums on the market, and although I personally consider Dark Was the Night to be one of the best available for sound quality and song selection, most any of ‘em will do if you’re looking to experience this gifted artist’s music. As long as the album you’re looking to buy includes a few key songs – “Dark Was The Night,” “It’s Nobody’s Fault But Mine,” and “John the Revelator” among them – then you can’t go wrong. More transcendent music doesn’t exist in the blues world, and Blind Willie Johnson’s mesmerizing slide-guitar work is second to none. (Legacy Recordings, released June 30th, 1998)