Eric Bibb: Blues People

Rosewood, Florida, was not a place to be if your skin was black in January 1923.

Nor should it have been a place to be if your skin was white, but on the spurious word of a young white woman they turned up in angry droves and laid waste to this small black community.

The story is told in Rosewood, one of the 15 tracks on this album framed in part as a tribute to Martin Luther King. Bibb is not one to dwell on the negative though he has no shortage of opportunity.

Rosewood is balanced by more benign remembrances but its chilling theme sets it apart. While Bibb makes no secret of his black middle-class roots, for example the opening Silver Spoon, the singer-guitarist enlists a bunch of top-notch guests to mine the various seams of blues styles to generally impressive effect.