Jim Kweskin & Geoff Muldaur – Penny’s Farm

JIM KWESKIN & GEOFF MULDAUR

Penny’s Farm

Kingswood Records

jimkweskin.com

geoffmuldaur.com

When I started collecting records obsessively in the 1960s, the LPs by Jim Kweskin & the Jug Band were – and remain – among my favorites. Drawing on folk songs, blues, jazz and early pop and novelty songs, the LPs were filled with fun, deceptively sophisticated, and an entrée into the older traditions and source artists they were drawing on. Well over 50 years after the Kweskin Jug Band got together and 40-something years since they broke up, Jim Kweskin and band stalwart Geoff Muldaur have reunited for the sublime Penny’s Farm, an eclectic collection of folk-rooted and folk-branched songs played by a couple of masters whose interpretive skills have aged like fine whiskey. Jim and Geoff each take the lead vocal on about half the tracks.

The album opens with Jim’s version of the traditional “Diamond Joe,” a song Alan Lomax collected from Big Charlie Butler at the Parchman Farm prison in Mississippi in 1939, and that has become familiar through countless interpretations by artists ranging from Cisco Houston to Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Bob Dylan. Jim begins singing a cappella and is then joined by Suzy Thompson’s powerful fiddling, Jim and Geoff’s guitars, Cindy Cashdollar’s Weissenborn guitar and Geoff’s harmonies.

Jim continues to shine whenever he takes the lead vocal. Among his highlights are “Down on Penny’s Farm,” one of several songs on the CD drawn from Harry Smith’s seminal Anthology of American Folk Music, on which Jim plays banjo and Geoff is heard on pennywhistle; the infectious African song “Guabi, Guabi,” which he first recorded on a solo LP, Relax Your Mind, in 1965; a haunting version of “The Cuckoo,” also drawn from the Harry Smith Anthology and also a reprise from Relax Your Mind; and a couple of Mississippi John Hurt songs, “Louis Collins (Angels Laid Him Away) – which Philadelphia Jerry Ricks once told me was John Hurt’s very favorite of his own songs – and “Frankie,” a variant of “Frankie and Johnny (or Albert).”

Geoff’s first lead vocal is on “The Boll Weevil,” another folk song collected by Lomax that has become a folk music standard in countless versions. This version is among the best I’ve heard. Geoff is playing six-string banjo and is ably supported by Jim on harmony vocals and guitar, Suzy on fiddle, Cindy on Dobro and Kevin Smith on bass.

Geoff, too, shines, whenever he’s at the lead vocalist’s mic. His highlights include Henry Thomas’ “Fishing Blues,” also drawn from the Harry Smith Anthology; “Just a Little While to Stay Here,” a New Orleans funeral song Geoff recorded earlier on his wonderful album, The Secret Handshake; a couple of Beale Street Sheiks numbers, “Sweet to Mama” and “Downtown Blues” (Geoff first recorded “Downtown Blues” in 1967 on the Kweskin Jug Band LP See Reverse Side for Title); and a fun version of Mississippi John Hurt’s “C-h-i-c-k-e-n.”

My very favorite of Geoff’s tracks, though is his version of Bobby Charles’ beautiful “Tennessee Blues,” a song he recorded more than 40 years ago on Geoff Muldaur is Having a Wonderful Time. Van Dyke Parks joins the ensemble on accordion on this version of the song.

And while Geoff may have been having a wonderful time on that long-ago solo LP, I’ve been having a wonderful time listening to Jim and Geoff both having a wonderful time on Penny’s Farm.

I’ll also mention that the CD package includes an appreciation of Jim and Geoff and the Jim Kweskin Jug Band by John Sebastian and informative song notes by Mary Katherine Aldin.

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--Mike Regenstreif

Michael Jerome Browne – Sliding Delta

MICHAEL JEROME BROWNE
Sliding Delta
Borealis 
michaeljeromebrowne.com

About 40 or so years ago, Marc Nerenberg excitedly told me about Michael Browne, a 14-year-old blues prodigy in Montreal. Soon, at a Sunday night hoot at the Yellow Door in Montreal, I heard him play and was suitably impressed by his obvious technique in playing traditional blues. But, as a much more mature 20- or 21-year-old, I wasn’t quite ready to take such a young kid seriously as a bluesman. I remember a similar reaction when I first met Colin Linden when he was 12 or 13.

Over the next years, I saw Michael play from time to time in coffee houses and, more often, busking on Prince Arthur Street or in the metro. It was obvious that both his technique and his understanding of the traditions were continuing to grow quickly. About 30 years ago, he began playing guitar and singing with the Stephen Barry Band – Montreal’s finest electric blues outfit. By then there was absolutely no question about taking Michael seriously.

With Michael continuing to develop as a solo performer on the street and with his lead vocals a highlight of several Stephen Barry Band albums, it was probably inevitable that he’d eventually get around to recording under his own name and in 1998 – by then known as Michael Jerome Browne – he released his self-titled debut. As I wrote in my Sing Out! magazine review, it was “an eclectic tour de force of various shades of the blues with some equally accomplished side excursions into Cajun and Appalachian music. Browne's soulful singing is matched by the depth of his instrumental powers on various guitars, banjos and fiddles.”

Since that debut, Michael has released a series of fine albums masterfully exploring a variety of traditional roots styles including various blues styles, Appalachian folk songs, Cajun music, and much more.

On Sliding Delta, Michael returns to the kind of early blues that first inspired him and it's a stunning selection of songs drawn from African American blues legends who were all gone by the time he got started four decades ago. Except for the final track, this is a purely solo album featuring Michael’s vocals and instrumental virtuosity – mostly on guitar but occasionally on banjo or mandolin or with added racked harp.

Without exception, I savored each of the 14 sublime performances, but a few of my very favorites include Mississippi John Hurt’s “Sliding Delta,” performed on the 12-string with a natural ease that is so reminiscent of Hurt himself; Memphis Minnie’s “Frisco Town,” a bouncy blues on which Michael shows how terrific the blues can be when played on the banjo; and Charley Patton’s “When Your Way Gets Dark,” on which he demonstrates how beautiful the interplay between voice and slide guitar can be on early Delta blues.

A couple of my other favorites – Henry Thomas’ infectious “Bull Doze Blues,” again played on the banjo (and it’s nice to hear someone playing a Thomas song other than “Fishing Blues”) and Crying Sam Collins’ “My Road is Rough and Rocky,” a variant of the better-known “Railroad Bill” – are drawn from the songster tradition that knew no boundaries between blues, folk songs, even early pop and jazz tunes.

Michael Jerome Browne, Mike Regenstreif & Eric Bibb (2005)

After playing solo on the first 13 tracks, Michael ends the album with a fine duet with the great Eric Bibb on “Choose Your Seat and Sit Down,” a spiritual originally recorded in the 1930s by Dock Reed and Vera Ward Hall.

Michael launches Sliding Delta with concerts here in Ottawa on Wednesday, January21, at Irene’s; and in Montreal on Saturday, January 24 at Petit Campus; and in Toronto on Sunday, January 25 at the Rivoli.

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--Mike Regenstreif