Folk tales and tones with a good swath of blues is brought up here.
Dom Flemons takes you back to the days of rural troubadours on this two disc set, playing a wide range of guitars, drums, various doo dads and harmonicas. He mixes and matches with groups which include Ben Hunter/fiddle, Keith Ganz/g, Ron Brendle/b, Kobie Watkins/dr Grian Horton/wwinds and a collection of background singers. You get a lot of old-home two steppers with Horton’s clarinet and Flemon’s avuncular voice on pieces like “’Til The Seas Run Dry” and some cajun tones on “I Can’t Do It Anymore”. A banjo is on the knee for “Milwaukee Blues” and “But They Got It Fixed Right On” with some penny whistle blowing with “Big Head Joe’s March”. A few instrumentals are short and concise, sounding like a modern version of Alan Lomax looking for rural talent on the unpaved roads of the South.
Alex Dixon plays electric and upright bass as well as piano while “Big Lew” Powell sings like a Chicago blueser along with Alvino Bennett/dr, Steve Bell-Sugar Blue/harp and guitarists Melvin taylor, Gino Matteo, Joey Delgado and Rico McFarland. You get some raucous Muddy Water sounds and a wailing harp on the Mannish Boy of “Nothing New Under The Sun” with a harrowing similarity to Howlin’ Wolf on the wild “Howlin’ For My Darling”. Some wacka wooka guitar gets swampy for “10,000 Miles Away” and the team boogies the blues for the title track. Dixon’s bass line teams with a crying harp for “My Greatest Desire” and the team double times as they double down on “Chi_Town Boogie”. A white knuckler-HOLD ON TIGHT!