Search - Bukka White :: Shake Em on Down

Overwhelming

Docendo Discimus | Vita scholae | 07/29/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Have you ever seen Bukka White perform?
A big, burly former prize fighter, Booker T. Washington White attacked his National steel guitar with a vengeance, pounding it like a drum, and slamming the copper slide against the strings.
His playing was strongly rhythmic, sometimes sounding more like a "talking drum" than a guitar, and his voice huge and reverberating.White reminds you of Charley Patton. He played raw, gritty, usually up-tempo blues and sang about death, despair, betrayal and misery in his hoarse and powerful voice, usually accompanied only by his own guitar playing. Like listening to Patton or Son House or "Blind" Willie Johnson, White's best songs are a profound experience.He made his first recordings in 1930, cutting 14 songs of which only two blues songs and two religious pieces were released. (On the last two he was accompanied by a female vocalist believed to be "Memphis" Minnie McCoy, a labelmate of White's at Victor records.)Only in 1937 did opportunity knock again, and White recorded two sides in Chicago before being sentenced to a term in prison for shooting a man, allegedly in self defence.
Both those sides are here, "Pinebluff, Arkansas", and his stark and powerful masterpiece, the intense and unforgettable "Shake 'Em On Down".He was recorded for the Library of Congress in '39 (those sides are here as well), while serving time at the infamous Parchman Farm Penitentiary. And upon his release from prison in 1940, Bukka White recorded another 12 sides for Lester Melrose in Chicago, and these twelve sides, which became the backbone for White's live performances for the rest of his long career, round out this CD.White recorded his best and most influential songs between 1930 and 1940, and this CD has them all. It is the most comprehensive overview of the most important period in his career."