Geoff Muldaur And The Texas Sheiks

Travellin' Riverside
Tradition & Moderne Records****

ROOTS:A couple of months back we enthusiastically embraced a long-overdue tribute album to The Mississippi Sheiks, a popular black string band with a brilliant tastein music. Among the acts that lined up to doff the hat were Geoff Muldaur and the Texas Sheiks. This supergroup of Americana musicians, including veteran bluesman Jim Kweskin, Suzy Thompson (fiddle) and Cindy Cashdollar (dobro and steel guitars), had actually formed to help their friend, guitarist Stephen Bruton, take his mind off his illness (he subsequently died from cancer). As such it would not be unreasonable to expect the darker side of the blues. But no, this is, as T-Bone Burnett writes in the sleeve notes, "a beautiful record by any measure", packed with lovingly reproduced rags, country blues, old-time tunes with personality and playing to savour. Well worth catching up on. www.geoffmuldaur. com

Download tracks: Blues in the Bottle, Fan It, Under the Chicken Tree