Review: Blues Guardians of the Past & Present

Review, From the Magazine, Rick Estrin & The Nightcats, Cedric Burnside, Eric Bibb, Abdallah Oumbadougou, Anthony Geraci, Muireann Bradley

By Frank-John Hadley I Jul. 23, 2024

Rick Estrin and the Nightcats are among the few seated at the head table in the royal court of blues.
(Photo: Steve Jennings)

Rick Estrin & The Nightcats: The Hits Keep Coming (Alligator; 48:53 ★★★★) Rick Estrin and his nattily dressed band are among the few seated at the head table in the royal court of blues. They, and their seventh album, are that good. Estrin’s a born entertainer with a zany streak, a master harmonica player, a sly lyricist, a solid tunesmith and a saucy singer delighting in the peculiarity of his own voice. He exudes authority, as does guitarist Kid Andersen. The other Nightcats, organist Lorenzo Farrell and drummer D’Mar Martin, customize their work to fit Estrin’s best-ever batch of tunes and one each from Muddy Waters and Leonard Cohen. Guest zest from gospel vocal trio Sons of The Soul Revivers.

Ordering info: alligator.com

Cedric Burnside: Hill Country Love (Provogue; 41:58 ★★★★) A grandson of R.L. Burnside, Cedric Burnside pivots slightly from the modern blues of his past few albums into a more tradition-conscious North Mississippi Hill Country sound. A fine singer-guitarist having invincible integrity, he knows the value of controlling emotionalism in originals about everyday life or in updates of R.L. and Mississippi Fred McDowell gems. Casting a down-and-dirty atmospheric pall over this session with North Mississippi Allstar Luther Dickinson and two others is the recording site: a crumbling Hill region house strewn with junk — or maybe it’s a ruined hovel in desert-blues Mali.

Ordering info: mascotlabelgroup.com

Eric Bibb: Live At The Scala Theatre (Repute/Stony Plain; 45:06 ★★★★) Eric Bibb is one of the most benign singers and guitarists in blues. On a concert album recorded near his home in Stockholm, he settles into excellent self-composed songbook favorites and a few traditional tunes with infinite feeling, elegant confidence and a combination of strength and subtlety that bespeaks his hero Mississippi John Hurt. Bibb’s music suggests he’s a man at peace with himself, a man with a spiritual-like acceptance of what life doles out. Accompanying him is a small crowd of friends, including a string section; they, too, make a graceful traversal of the program.

Ordering info: stonyplainrecords.com

Abdallah Oumbadougou: Amghar–The Godfather Of Tuareg Music, Vol. 1 (Petaluma; 74:58 ★★★★) Far less known around the world than Ali Farka Toure, the Malian who connected western Africa kora music with U.S. blues, is Abdallah Oumbadougou. Beloved by nomadic Tuareg musicians of the Sahara, the late Niger-born singer-guitarist lives on in the grooves of 14 restored-and-remastered tracks (six previously unheard) collected on two records. It’s an exalted example of desert blues. Listeners are induced into a trance state by way of rich call-and-response vocals, circular guitar lines, rhythmic melodies, tempos suggesting a camel’s stride, even bluesy psychedelic rock. Beyond trippy hypnosis, Oumbadougou’s musical alchemy hits a nerve with its representations of emotional pain, loneliness and the Tuareg struggle for ethnic identity and independence. English translations of lyrics in the Tamashek language are provided.

Ordering info: strong-place-music.com

Anthony Geraci: Tears In My Eyes (Blue Heart; 48:41 ★★★★) Anthony Geraci has long been part of the bedrock of the Boston-Providence blues scene. In recent years, he has stepped out of the seaside shadows into the limelight of international acclaim, largely on the strength of feature albums. Tears keeps the momentum going. Blessed with a fraught musical imagination and considerable ability on piano or organ, Geraci airs out a set of original songs of blues or bluesy persuasions. There are nods to Jay McShann and Ramsey Lewis, as well as the Allman Brothers and — can it be? — Blue Öyster Cult. Standout track “Memphis Mist,” an instrumental inspired by a stroll along the Mississippi River, works its magic with violin-garnished music beyond facile classification.

Ordering info: blueheartrecords.com

Muireann Bradley: I Kept These Old Blues (Tompkins Square; 47:17 ★★★½) Bradley is an Irish folk-blues artist in her teens who updates the cadences and styles of past country blues giants like Blind Blake and Mississippi John Hurt. For her debut, Bradley draws on impressive musicianship; her precocious feel for rhythm is uncanny. But while her guitar stamps much of her own sensibility on Hurt’s “Richland Woman Blues” and the rest, her singing is bereft of even a scintilla of mature conviction or experience. DB

Ordering info: tompkinssquare.com