Search - Various Artists :: Dark Was the Night: Tribute to Music Blind

Dark Was The Night is producer David Suff's third tribute album. Having tackled the music of Richard Thompson and Joseph Spence in the past, Suff now invites a collection of roots and folk notables to pay their respects to the great Blind Willie Johnson and the results must have surpassed everybody's expectations. Covering these old blues and gospel sides is a dangerous game. Their appeal relies so much on the atmospherics and feel of the original recordings, that any new versions are down before they start. And yet, all 14 tracks work in their own different ways, making it difficult to pick out highlights. However, I did particularly enjoy Martin Simpson's pair of atmospheric tunes, 3 Mississippistapha 3's loopy When The War Was On, Julie Murphy and Richard Llewellyn's beautiful reading of John The Revelator and Bob Copper growling his way through Soul Of A Man. Add to that Positively Testcard's South African pennywhistle jive version of Dark Was The Night, an evocative God Don't Never Change from Ginny Clee (a new name to me) and Peter Stampfel and Gary Lucas' joyous, mandolin-driven Thank God I'm Satisfied and I hope you can get some idea of the range and charm of what's on offer, everything from goodtimey-oldtimey to spare 'n' dark to just plain weird! Yet it all hangs together somehow. The profits are all going to schools and charities for disadvantaged children, so even a God fearin' man like Blind Willie J would have approved. - Jamie Renton, fRoots