Search - Bukka White :: Mississippi Blues

Essential blues recording

01/20/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"In 1964, University of California at Berkeley college students John Fahey, and Ed Denson, both blues enthusiists, sent a letter soley addressed to "Booker T. Washington Wite (Old Blues Singer) c/o General Delivery, Aberdeen".Amazingly, the letter found its way to relatives of Booker (Bukka) who then passed it on to Booker himself. Two hours after recieving a letter from Booker, Fahey and Denson were in their car on the way to Memphis. They located his rooming house and were surprised to find that after 35 years of forced silence (prison), Bukka still played with the same fire and intensity of his younger days. The recording they made that historic day in'64 became this disc.The version of "Poor Boy Long Way From Home" is filled with the same passion and energy of an earlier,1930 version. You'll picture Bukka standing in his prison uniform, exhausted and broken as he sings"...When can I change my clothes.." from the classic cut "Parchman Farm Blues".No doubt life was rough for Bukka on the Parchman Farm Prison Work Camp and you can fell his heartache and misery in that song as if you were the unlucky one in prison stripes. At age 55, Bukka surely thought his time as a recording artist were over. But the two young white men who traveled across country to meet this legend breathed new life into an old tired soul.Fell the passion as he sings "Baby Please Don't GO". You'll think you really are on the "New Orleans Streamline" or "The Atlanta Special".You'll thrill to the complex arrangement of "Poor Boy Long Way From Home" done just as it was for Alan Lomax back when Bukka was still in Parchman.What we have here is a true slice of history.Relive is life through songs such as "Army Blues" and "Shake 'Em On Down".Yes, this cousin of B.B. King is a true American original whose timeless recordings should be treasured by generations to come."