ERIC BIBB
Migration Blues
Stony Plain
As I’ve said often before, Eric
Bibb is one of the most inspired, and inspiring, of contemporary blues and
folk artists. Eric has been quite prolific over the past two decades, releasing
many studio albums, live albums and collaborative albums and the quality of his
work has been consistently high. My best-of-the-year lists here on the Folk
Roots/Folk Branches blog have included an Eric Bibb album for six of the past
eight years – and they were on my lists many times before that when the
Montreal Gazette was publishing my annual picks.
Migration Blues, a topical and timely set of songs about the migration of peoples
and individuals – from country to country or place to place – is one of Eric’s
most powerful and compelling collections.
Before discussing any of the songs, I’ll mention that this is an
intimate recording. In addition to Eric, who variously plays various guitars
and six-string banjo, the core musicians are multi-instrumentalist Michael Jerome Browne of Montreal on
various banjos, various guitars, fiddle and mandolin; and harmonica master JJ Milteau of France. The three
virtuoso musicians – whether all three or two at a time – are a seamless unit.
The album opens with Eric’s “Refugee Moan,” a haunting song sung
from the perspective of a refugee praying for a way out of his war-torn country
to find a home somewhere peaceful. The song is a universal plea that could
apply to refugees from any of the conflicts that have plagued our world in
recent decades – even recent centuries.
Other songs about refugees include “Prayin’ for Shore,” a
heartbreaking account of refugees – such as the millions who have left Syria
over the past six years, or the Vietnamese boat people of a generation ago, or
the displaced Jewish Holocaust survivors attempting to reach pre-state Israel
after the Second World War – who cross treacherous waters in flimsy boats because
they have no other choice; and “Four Years, No Rain,” co-written by Michael and
B.A. Markus, which reflects how
combinations of war, drought and even terrorism affect refugees.
“Delta Getaway,” co-written by Eric and JJ, reflects the experience
of a pre-war blues artist from Mississippi who witnessed a lynching and feared
for his life in the Jim Crow South setting out to make his way north to Memphis
and on to Chicago. A similar theme is voiced later in the album on “With a
Dolla’ in My Pocket” and, to an extent, on “Blacktop,” an older song co-written
by Michael and B.A. Markus and sung
as a duet by Eric and Michael.
“Diego’s Blues,” co-written by Eric and Michael, tells the origin
story of the son of a Mexican woman and African American man. Diego’s mother was
one of the many Mexican migrants who’d arrived in the Delta in the 1920s to
find work in an area experiencing a labor shortage because of the migration of
African Americans leaving the rural South for the urban North hoping to escape
Jim Crow; while “We Had to Move” – inspired by the story of James Brown’s family – describes the
reasons why the people in one particular African American neighborhood were
forced to migrate somewhere else.
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| Michael Jerome Browne, Mike Regenstreif & Eric Bibb (2005) |
There are three powerful instrumentals on the album. In the title
track, co-written by Eric, Michael and JJ, you can virtually feel the footsteps
of people on the move in the sounds of the instruments. In “La Vie c’est un
oignon,” Michael’s fiddle and JJ’s harmonica wordlessly tell the story of the
forced migration of 18th century Acadians from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and
Prince Edward Island to Louisiana where they became Cajuns; and in the short “Postcard
from Booker,” Eric plays a guitar owned by the late blues artist Booker (Bukka) White in a tribute that
perhaps reflects the traveling life that White led as a musician.
In addition to the songs written or co-written by Eric, Michael and
JJ, there are also superb versions of Woody
Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” (including the often unsung political verses)
and Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War,” two
songs which remain as powerful today as when they were written more than 75 and
50 years ago.
The album ends quietly with a beautiful version of the traditional
African American spiritual “Mornin’ Train,” featuring Eric on vocals and guitar
with Ulrika Bibb singing harmony and
Michael setting the pace with his banjo.
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--Mike Regenstreif
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