Bad Temper Joe
The Acoustic Blues Guitar Revue
"The Acoustic Blues Guitar Revue" presents the Bielefeld native as an interpreter of traditional blues pieces from the 1920s to the 1960s. The album's track list, including songs by Charley Patton, Elizabeth Cotten, R. L. Burnside, and Mississippi John Hurt, reads like the "what's what" of the blues. And Bad Temper Joe's fresh interpretations of the genre classics sparkle with joy and a love of improvisation. With each song, the guitarist exploits the diverse potential of his instrument in most cases a Weissenborn lap steel, an acoustic guitar with a hollow neck that is laid flat on the lap and played with a slide and shows no dependence on a rhythm section. And yet the question remains: Is this really just BTJ with a guitar? This makes it all the more impressive that the album was recorded entirely live and without overdubs. Bad Temper Joe by no means simply delivers further versions of compositions that are between 60 and 100 years old versions that we've heard many times before. Nor does he break the songs down into fashionable, postmodern or desperately original versions. Quite the opposite: BTJ seems to have an ability to capture the essence of the songs and play them in such a way that it seems as if the classics were always meant to sound this way. Using only guitar and vocals, the blues bard succeeds in captivating and enthralling his listeners throughout the entire album in a highly varied, entertaining and intellectually stimulating way. On three tracks, Bad Temper Joe is also virtuosically and unobtrusively accompanied by Marcel Rahe on the harmonica.