Avalon Blues: A Tribute to the Music of Mississippi John Hurt

1	Frankie & Albert / Chris Smither 3:02
2	Avalon, My Home Town / Bruce Cockburn 4:19
3	Angels Laid Him Away / Lucinda Williams 4:24
4	Here Am I, Oh Lord, Send Me / Alvin Youngblood Hart 2:57
5	Candyman / Steve & Justin Earle 2:20
6	Monday Morning Blues / Peter Case 4:16
7	Sliding Delta / Ben Harper 3:08
8	Chicken / Jenni Muldaur 2:20
9	Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor / Mark Selby 4:12
10	Stagolee / Beck 2:46
11	Since I've Laid My Burden Down / Victoria Williams 3:59
12	Pay Day / Bill Morrissey 2:49
13	My Creole Belle / Taj Mahal 2:57
14	Beulah Land / Gillian Welch 4:34
15	I'm Satisfied / John Hiatt 3:19

Barnes & Noble

For two months in 1928, self-taught bluesman Mississippi John Hurt ventured to Memphis and New York City to record; he then disappeared into the hills of the Mississippi Delta for 35 years of anonymity in his hometown, Avalon, where the new sharecropper jammed with local guitarists and fiddlers at Saturday-night socials and church suppers. Tracked down in 1963 by two scout musicians, Hurt recorded three albums for Vanguard and performed throughout the Northeast at clubs, colleges, and festivals (including the Newport Folk Festival) for the three years preceding his death in 1966. Yet the swinging ragtime finger-picking and sweetly simple homespun songs of this blues icon’s brief career have influenced countless listeners, including the 15 musicians featured on this excellent Vanguard tribute CD, which should quickly “open the door to a new generation [of fans],” as producer Peter Case hopes. Right from the outstanding opening tracks -- the jaunty woman-done-wrong revenge tale of “Frankie & Albert” (where Chris Smither plays the one-man-band as he fingerpicks harmony over a rollin’, foot-stompin’ rhythm), the wistful siren song of “Avalon, My Home Town” (where Bruce Cockburn lays his lone, throaty voice over a spare 12-string wilderness), and especially the breathy Appalachian whisper-wail of “Angels Laid Him Away” (where Lucinda Williams weep-moans her way through heart-wrenching plainsong)-- these contemporary artists breath new life into Hurt’s old classics and make them their own. Other standouts are Beck’s bittersweet slow-boil take on he’s-a-loser-baby “Stagolee” and Victoria Williams’s crazed church-lady screech, backed by wah-wah banjo and percolating bass, on “Since I’ve Laid My Burden Down.” There’s something for everyone here: humor, both sly (the sleepy sexual leer of Steve and Justin Earle’s “Candy Man”) and corny (Geoff Muldaur’s old-timey, spell-out “Chicken”); gospel, both R&B-style (Alvin Youngblood Hart’s tambourine-revivalist boogie “Here Am I, Oh Lord, Send Me”) and hymnal (Gillian Welch’s lyrical two-step “Beulah Land”), and, of course, the blues, whether ramblin’ (Peter Case and Dave Alvin’s quick-shuffle “Monday Morning Blues”), down-home (Bill Morrissey’s gravelly “Pay Day,” Mark Selby’s oom-pah “Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor”), spicy (Taj Mahal’s jambayala “My Creole Belle”), or simply straight (Ben Harper’s Jack Daniels-smooth “Sliding Delta”). No matter what your taste, in the end you’re sure to say, just as John Hiatt does, “I’m Satisfied.”--Janie Matthews

All Music Guide

If you assemble a bunch of above-average artists to pay tribute to a major artist, is the result an above-average tribute record? Not always, but in this case it is. Organized and executive-produced by Peter Case, this contains covers of the Mississippi bluesman's songs by more than a dozen medium-big and very-big names from the folk and rock worlds, including Beck, Taj Mahal, Bruce Cockburn, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle (dueting with Justin Earle), Ben Harper, Peter Case & Dave Alvin (performing together), Geoff Muldaur, Gillian Welch, and John Hiatt. It's more a folk-rock-blues crossover album than a Delta blues one, which is fine: tribute albums shouldn't be re-creations of the originals, and whether or not it was the intention, it will expose some of John Hurt's songs to fans who identify themselves primarily as folk or rock listeners. And not many of these songs are very well-known, with the exception of "Candy Man" (done by Steve & Justin Earle) and "Stagolee" (sung by Beck). The arrangements are low-key and respectful, the best ones being Ben Harper's "Sliding Delta" (which is one of the bluesiest performances) and Victoria Williams' "Since I've Laid My Burden Down," which has very eccentric banjo sounds. Richie Unterberger