ALBUM REVIEW: Dan Auerbach Gathers the Blues Together for ‘Tell Everybody’ Collection

Black Keys guitarist-vocalist Dan Auerbach is a blues curator. But unlike collectors and disseminators of obscure folk and blues like the Lomaxes, who recorded artists in their native habitats, Auerbach summoned his finds to Nashville to record with him for Tell Everybody: 21st Century Juke Joint Blues From Easy Eye Sound. The result is an enhanced contemporary sound for their rootsy contributions, and Auerbach takes the process even farther by collaborating with some of his artists, composing new tunes with an ancient feel that pays homage to their blues roots.

Tell Everybody is a wide-ranging anthology featuring artists from Kentucky to Mississippi with stops along the way in Louisiana and Ohio to pick up on some bluesology.

The title cut, the bigfoot swamp stomper “Tell Everybody” from Robert Finley, commands attention to his upcoming presentation, vowing that he has “moves and grooves guaranteed to blow your mind.”

Some of the material has been released before, notably Leo Bud Welch’s contribution, “Don’t Let the Devil Ride,” recorded in 2017 and released posthumously on The Angels in Heaven Done Signed My Name. The cut presented here is a previously unreleased mono version. Sacred steel purveyors The Campbell Brothers introduced the tune as well as the origins of sacred steel to the general public in their 2005 release Can You Feel It, where it sounded like a mashup of Duane Allman, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and B.B. King getting all churchy. Welch’s take on it is stripped down and sinister, a cautionary tale with hellfire licking his fretboard.

Jimmy “Duck” Holmes’ “Catfish Blues” came from the 2019 Easy Eye release Cypress Grove, but is included here as an alternate mono take.

Auerbach credits Ohio guitarist Glenn Schwartz as the inspiration for starting The Black Keys. Schwartz can be heard on two cuts from a 2016 Easy Eye session: the acoustic “Collinwood Fire” and “Daughters of Zion,” a fiery whomper that has echoes of Cream embedded in its bluesy bombast. Joe Walsh, who also plays on the cut, said that seeing Schwartz play in the 1960s made him want to be a rock and roller.

The sinister instrumental from the Detroit duo Moonrisers (drummer Adam Schreiber and Dobro player Libby DeCamp) features flamenco guitar licks superimposed over a mud-sucking swamp stomp.

Auerbach’s own creation, “Every Chance I Get (I Want You In the Flesh),” sounds like it got inspiration from Norman Greenbaum’s 1969 gospel/pop crossover hit “Spirit in the Sky,” but Auerbach’s song concentrates on matters of the skin.

“No Lovin” features Auerbach and The Black Keys on a hardcore thumper with an amplified Hill Country drone that sounds dragged uphill out of the swamp, still dripping hoodoo juice.

Paying homage to the muddy roots that inspired him, Auerbach keeps the heart and spirit of the blues alive for future generations to enjoy.

Tell Everybody: 21st Century Juke Joint Blues From Easy Eye Sound is out Aug. 11.