Blues

Latest CD releases reviewed

MUDDY WATERS/JOHN LEE HOOKER
King of Chicago Blues/ The Boogie ManProper ****

Both of these excellent budget-priced 4-CD boxsets focus on the earliest recordings of two men destined to become giants of the blues world. Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker were of a similar vintage, both being born shortly before 1920 in Mississippi, albeit 100 miles apart. However, Waters would move to Hooker's birthplace of Clarksdale at an early age and so both soaked up key Delta Blues influences - though their paths apparently never crossed. Waters was recorded there in 1941, but these remarkably clean early country blues efforts would turn into the heady ensemble stew of electric Chicago blues when he moved north shortly afterwards - the boxset's 97 tracks end in 1955. The lone wolf Hooker also moved north, but he went to Detroit where the bulk of the 98 tracks were recorded between 1948 and 1955 - primitive passions fuelled by his trademark menacing voice, abrasive guitar and rhythmic thumping foot. Together the importance of these collections makes light of the inevitably dodgy sound and the invariably dodgy tracks, helped in no small amount by the excellent sleeve notes. Joe Breen

THE ROBERT CRAY BAND
Live From Across the Pond New West ***

Robert Cray's generation were the direct line of blues pioneers such as Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker, both of whom the Georgia-born guitarist and singer admired. But Cray has never seemed to fully grasp the blues nettle despite being one of the more skilful guitarists associated with the genre. His music has a real soft centre - he always seems to be in cruise control - and the band's heavy-handed musicianship doesn't help. This lack of edge pervades this double album recorded in London - hence the title. Invariably, these live sets are alternative greatest hits packages, and so songs such as Phone Booth and Bad Influence are included, though there are better tracks such as I'm Walkin. Joe Breen

[ www.robertcray.com ]

ROBIN WILLIAMSON
The Iron Stone ECM **

Musically provocative and lyrically excruciating, the former Incredible String Band multi-instrumentalist Robin Williamson sings poetry as though it were a prelude to the gallows. Maudlin, lumbering, sawing diligently against the senses, The Iron Stone does indeed serve as a flint against which Williamson appears to be sharpening his vocals. His eclectic verse borrowings are promising: John Clare, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walter Raleigh, but his choice of accompaniment in the form of Mat Maneri's Hardanger fiddle is not only testing, but positively ruts against the eardrums. Stalwart fans of the Incredible String Band might savour Williamson's treatment of two of the band's songs, (the title track and The Yellow Snake) but all this timorous tremulation and foreboding incantation has a curious facility to grate and grind, seemingly unceasingly. Siobhán Long

[ www.ecmrecords.com ]