Corey Harris – Fulton Blues (Deluxe Edition)
Rick J Bowen
Posted On December 2, 2014
Upon first listen to Corey Harris’s music, you hear that his voice and guitar playing are not as flashy or as smooth as his contemporaries. But, as his music sinks in, you get a sense that this man has a deep intensity and genuinely lives and breathes the songs he is singing.
Denver-born Harris has been a globe-trotter, spending time in New Orleans and West Africa, searching for the roots of what he calls “True Blues.” His latest studio album, Fulton Blues, released in the spring of 2014, is an extension of his quest to refine the traditional blues formulas of Appalachian, Piedmont, and Delta blues styles, mixing them with modern themes and topical relevance.
The opening track features his full the band, The Rasta Blues Experience, on a Chicago-styled shuffle called “Crying Blues,” with Gordon”Saxman” Jones quoting “Night Train” during the lonesome song. Harris weaves together Griot and Delta styles with his finger picking ostinato riff, mimicking the sound of an African Kora. Hook Herrera then joins him on harmonica for “J.Gilly Blues,” a little ragtime tune about a rambling man. The band returns for the soul blues tale of deception — “Tallahatchie” — with Harris moving to gritty electric guitar. The title track aims to bring to light the tragedy of Fulton, a community in Richmond, VA that is older than the city itself. The Black town on the east end of the city endured for more than 300 years until its land was seized and the families living there were forcibly evicted.
Harris gives heartfelt readings of three classics. The first is the sinister Skip James tune “Devil Got My Woman,” the playful “Catfish Blues,” and “That Will Never Happen No More,” a gem from pioneer of Piedmont blues Arthur “Blind” Blake. Harris does not mince words with his rebuke “House Negro Blues,” and the sorrowful “Lynch Blues.” For him and many others the scar of slavery remains an open wound.
Rick J Bowen
