VARIOUS ARTISTS - Things About Comin’ My Way: A Tribute to the Music of The Mississippi Sheiks

In Things About Comin’ My Way, producer Steve Dawson manages to evoke the spirit of 1930s plantation-blues band of brothers The Mississippi Sheiks. Born to slaves, Sam, Lonnie and Armenter Chatmon are covered by various artists and bands influenced by their moon-howling tunes on this beautiful tribute album. Walking the fine line between fidelity and individuality, all 17 tracks on this long play stay true to their original interpretations, while inflecting unique arrangements from their respective interpreters. Bruce Cockburn’s intricate finger-picking on his version of Honey Let The Deal Go Down and Ndidi Onukwulu’s soulful, yearning vocal delivery on the title track are among the standouts, rivaling Oh Susanna’s passionate rendition of Bootlegger’s Blues. Overall, Things About Comin’ My Way conjures up a mood and a feel for the time and place these rants were first born in, sounding at once contemporary and timeless, painful and playful.

Published in Volume 64, Number 7 of The Uniter (October 15, 2009)

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