Damon Fowler's fine new CD, "Sugar Shack" (Blind Pig), raises some old questions about things like roots music and blues music and what they are and who performs which kind in what songs.
None of which matters very much when the music is good. And Fowler's music -- you can call it blues, if you like -- is very good, drawing on all the best influences in American music.
Fowler is a fine Florida singer-songwriter guitar player whose music ranges from tightly wound blues and expressive slide, like "Lonely Blues," to soulfully crafted and sung ballads like the mournful "James."
His lyrics are alternately fun -- check out "VFW," where there's some mature steppin' out to be done -- and poetic -- try on the elegantly dirgelike "I Hope It's Gonna Rain."
Fowler does a nice job on some covers here, including Merle Haggard's "Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down" and Howard Smith's "Third Rate Romance." Yes, those are basically country songs, but with lots of roots, and that's where the blues live, too.
Fowler, who also plays lap steel and dobro, works with a trio -- Chuck Riley on bass and Scott Key on drums -- and the simplicity keeps the focus on the structure of the music. It has a lovely starkness and you can imagine that his work comes across even stronger live.
For example, here's a YouTube video of Fowler playing the title track, "Sugar Shack," at Skipper's Smokehouse in Tampa, Fla. Where, incidentally, he will be having a CD release party tonight. So if you've followed the Steelers to Florida for the Super Bowl, and are still checking out BlueNotes, look up the Smokehouse online and check out Fowler. If not ... well, you could listen to the CD a lot on SB weekend. Enjoy the lap steel on this video:
By the way, if you remember the other "Sugar Shack," like BlueNotes does, you may want to know that it was recorded by Jimmy Gilmer & the Fireballs in 1963.
More Obama, more blues
You may have read recently that brand-new Preisdent Obama gave his first big TV interview the other day to the Arabic satellite news channel Al Arabiya, with a journalist named Hisham Melhem.
Did you know that in the small talk before the interview, the pair talked blues, mainly Chicago blues? Here's a quote from Melhem:
"He was surprised when he found out I loved this music, especially in
the 1940s and 1950s. We talked in detail about blues singers and the
importance of blues as part of Chicago's cultural heritage," said
Melhem .... (Read the article)
Didn't you just know that the blues were gonna help bring world peace?
Posted
Jan 30 2009, 01:00 AM
by
Jim White