White, Bukka -& Friends-
Memphis Swamp Jam
Feted as the "Gateway to the South" and situated just above the Mississippi Deltas cotton-growing zone, Memphis has a long, rich history of blues music, its strategic location rendering it a longstanding centre for the mingling of rural and urban blues styles. The city was thus a very fitting home for the Memphis Blues Festival of 1969 that gave rise to this incredible double live album. Most of the tracks are provided by bluesmen based in Memphis and its environs, such as country blues giant Bukka White, crying blues legend Sleepy John Estes, barrelhouse pianist Memphis Piano Red, electric banjo specialist Nathan Beauregard, country blues great Mississippi Fred McDowell (here collaborating with harmonica player Johnny Woods), singer and fife player Napoleon Strickland with the Como Drum Band and Delta blues man Furry Lewis; credited under the unlikely pseudonyms of RL Watson and Josiah Jones are none other than experimental folk pioneer John Fahey and steel guitarist Bill Barth, the latter a co-founder of the Memphis Country Blues Society.