ALBUM REVIEW: Rev Peyton’s Big Damn Originals Mingle with Resurrected and Revitalized Blues Classics
Grant Britt
Posted On February 20, 2025
It’s a lot of sound for three damn people. With a big damn voice that resonates like an amped-up street preacher pounding on a 500 pound anvil, Rev. Peyton has no trouble getting his message across by himself. But that’s not the only tool in his big damn arsenal. His steel-bodied National guitar, wood-bodied Resonator and Gibson acoustic fuel his fiery output as well. His sound is augmented by wife Breezy’s washboard rhythms and sweet vocal harmonies backed by drummer Jacob the Snakob Powell who provided handclaps and additional harmonies for this project, recorded in his home in Brown County, Indiana.
You can’t listen to this stuff without getting as excited about it as he is to deliver it. Peyton projects like a mega-watt radio station, blasting his message out with conviction and gusto. He’s a serious blues scholar who believes that blues doesn’t belong in a museum but needs to be in the here and now, pulsing thorough the circulatory systems of everybody within earshot.
The Rev. does his damn best to make that prophecy come through on his latest, Honeysuckle. The video for the title cut has Peyton putting out some rough-hewn country blues on his rural home turf serenading the animals who seem unfazed as he blasts out his adoration for his sweetheart: “she’s a lot, but not too much.”
The McCrary Sisters drop by to add some celestial backing support on “Looking For A Manger.” The Rev.’s original gospel composition takes inspiration from a Blind Willie Johnson tune and a comment his mother used to make about disguised angels roaming the earth. “The strangers you meet could be angels in need,” the Rev. cautions as the sisters coo in the background like heavenly doves. “They say the savior could come like a stranger/ If it happened what would you do? Angels could fall/Would you answer the call?”
Chicago harp legend Billy Branch sits in on Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “Nell(Prison Cell Blues),” with Peyton unloading vocals like Captain Beefheart chained throat to throat with Son House. Michael Cleveland (Rhonda Vincent, Bela Fleck) has to fiddle like the devil to keep up with the Rev.’s version of bluegrass on Keith Allison’s “Freeborn Man,” both charging along like a couple of hell bent engineers headed for home.
“Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning” has passed through a lot of fingers since Blind Willie Johnson recorded it in ’28 and Rev. Gary Davis cut a version in ’56. As Hot Tuna, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady brought it to a young audience in 1970 and have kept it in their set lists ever since. The Rev. brings a new urgency to it with his frenzied rendition, which might make you believe the Day of Judgment may damn well be at hand.
You certainly won’t have any trouble hearing the message the Rev. brings. Heed the call, and when your ears stop ringing, take it to heart.
Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band’s Honeysuckle is out Feb. 21 via Family Owned Records.
