BLUFF CITY BACKSLIDERS: Bluff City Backsliders

Bluff City Backsliders

Bluff City Backsliders

© 2002 Yellow Dog Records (823800103227)

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Early jazz, jug band, old-time country, and proto-bluegrass sounds, reaching from Memphis to Appalachia and all the way down to New Orleans, often all at once. High-powered, hip-shaking, barrelhouse hoodoo music that's as profane as it is glorious.

tracks

1 .44 Blues
2 Pony Blues
3 Aunt Caroline Dyer Blues
4 Let Me Play with Yo' Yo-Yo
5 All Around Man
6 Everybody's Talking about Sadie Green
7 Careless Love Blues
8 Saint James Infirmary
9 Stay on the Right Side, Sister
10 Boll Weevil Blues
11 Step It Up and Go
12 Everybody Ought to Make a Change

notes

"I fell asleep listening to this CD and dreamed I was drunk in a whorehouse..."
-- from the liner notes by Jim Dickinson

The self-titled debut from the Memphis-based Bluff City Backsliders delivers high-powered, hip-shaking, barrelhouse hoodoo music that's as profane as it is glorious.

Finger-plucked guitar, high-dollar fiddle, vamping banjos, bottleneck and lap-style resonator guitar, dog-bite mandolin, sliding trombone, and stride and strut pianos produce a joyous cacophony of early jazz, jug band, old-time country, and proto-bluegrass sounds, reaching from Memphis to Appalachia and all the way down to New Orleans, often all at once.

Something archetypal in the band's music thrills music lovers of all kinds, old and young. Feet stomp. Throats howl. Grandparents dance with grandchildren. Joy abounds.


"A rootsy acoustic brew that evokes the city's sweet, lazy, jazzy past..."
--Chris Herrington, The Memphis Flyer

"In a town with more blues bands than you can shake a porkpie hat at, the Bluff City Backsliders truly stands out as something unique."
--Mark Jordan, The Commercial Appeal


CAST OF CHARACTERS
Jason Freeman: Throaty vocals & finger-plucked guitar
"Blind Dog" Clint Wagner: High-dollar fiddle & vamping banjo
Mark Lemhouse: Slide lap-style guitar that makes ex-convicts cry & sweet harmony
Memphis Graber: Dog-bite mandolin, barking kazoo & sweeter harmony
Mike "Trombone" Powers: Sliding sonorous metal mating calls
John C. Stubblefield: Extra large fiddle
Adam "Wigglehead" Woodard: Stride and strut keys
Steve Barnat: Snare and kick drums, gew gaws & cheap suit


WARNING! Side effects may include: spontaneous whooping, extended periods of euphoria, falling in love, uncontrollable foot stomping, elation and joy, boogie fever, and a temporary healing of all worldly ills.

reviews

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  • Here's some things your gandpa should have told you
    author: A.J. Pesquera

    but probably didn't. It wasn't all about Bessie Smith or preppy crooners with megaphones back in the day. I'd never heard anything like this. It's worth getting just to hear Jason Freeman's vocals; he's got a voice gives me chills: raw, hard-edged, strong wailer. He don't hold nothing back, but this is so much more. The strings backing him up set the environment: makes me think of Leon Russell's howl when he realizes, "I'm Out in the Woods!" My favorites are .44 Blues, All Around Man, Stay on the Right Side, Sister.

  • author: CD Baby

    Wella, yee haw! This runaway, irresistable barrelhouse hoodoo brilliance, ripping out the early, pre-WWII jazz, jug band, old-time country, and proto-bluegrass sounds, reaches from Memphis to Appalachia and all the way down to New Orleans; it's darn tootin'. Shimmy your shoulders and let the load off. It's still what the doctor ordered for the tight wads.

  • The remedy for what ails you...
    author: Blues Bytes

    Looking for something different, that will make you smile and tap your toes? Well, The Bluff City Backsliders and their self-titled recording from Yellow Dog Records might have the remedy for what ails you. The Backsliders, out of Memphis, play acoustic blues with a taste of early jazz and old-time country, all the while sounding thoroughly modern in their approach. The instruments range from banjo, fiddle, mandolin, trombone, resonator guitar, and piano, so it's a very rootsy sound.

  • It's tight like that
    author: Living Blues

    The Bluff City Backsliders play American roots music, on a blues base (Howlin' Wolf, Bo Carter, Charley Patton, Willie McTell, John Estes are among the song composers) but with strong touches of old-time country and New Orleans Jazz. Whatever it is, it's tight like that, as the song says. A great album, accessible to moderns yet deeply traditional.

  • Taking blues back to an earlier time.
    author: Blues Revue

    Well-timed and unquestionably interesting, balancing gravity and levity, verisimilitude and grotesque...

  • The Bluff City boys obviously don't wear their underwear too tight.
    author: BlogCritics

    This loving homage to the region is like a little dirt scraped from the fingernail on Robert Johnson's pinky - it contains more strata of soul than an archaeological dig.

  • Welcome To The Party
    author: The Blues Site

    The music is a tasty blend of country blues, ragtime, jazz, honky-tonk, juke joint, and Dixieland fused together for a sound that’s infectious.

  • author: Netherlands Alt Country Newsletter

    The twelve tracks swing, cry, lament, dream and can drive the listener to unbounded binge-drinking.

  • Love the Blues on this CD. Great Music to say the least.
    author: Robert Lee Johnson -- The Guitar man

    I love he music on this CD. Some really great singing and backup.

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