The
new double-disc featuring Robert Belfour, R.L. Boyce, Kenny
Brown, Cedric Burnside, Garry Burnside, Tramp Camp, Cyd Cassone,
Chris Chew, Davis Coen, Eric Deaton, Ruthie Foster, Steve Gardner,
Greg Humphreys, Kinney Kimbrough, DJ Logic, Papa Mali, Jimbo
Mathus, and Sharde Turner and the Rising Star Fife & Drum
Corps.
"Jessie
Mae Hemphill is back...we catch up with the legendary blues
woman today on the delightful double disc Dare You to Do It
Again, a hootenanny of a session that pairs Hemphill with a
number of guests from ex-Squirrel Nut Zippers frontman Jimbo
Mathus (these days a Clarksdale, Miss., resident) to Sharde
Thomas with the Rising Star Fife & Drum Band.
Recorded
live last year at Sherman Cooper's farm in Como, Miss., thealbum
- to be released Tuesday - doesn't document so much as revel
in every spontaneous note (you can even hear a phone ring at
one point).
A
companion DVD will be available in March. Still singing if not
playing (a 1993 stroke all but put an end to that), Hemphill
does a sincere, at times touching, job of leading the musicians
through many a traditional gospel number, including 'Old Time
Religion,' 'When the Saints Go Marching In' and 'I Shall Not
Be Moved.' The highlight, all 12 minutes of it, comes in what
sounds like a duet between Memphis boo gie great Robert Belfour
and Hemphill (liner notes don't identify players on each song)
for the album's solid rock of a rocker, 'God Is Good to Me.'"
Bill
Ellis, Commercial Appeal, Memphis 2004
"My
sisters and my brothers, we are all gathered here today to record
a CD, a high-tech field recording. All day long and, the night
before, musicians have started gathering and waiting for the
arrival of "Miss Jessie", Jessie Mae Hemphill, Queen of the
Guitar Boogie. More than a recording session, this evening will
prove to be a summit, reunion and document; a...juke-joint throw
down presided over by sister Jessie Mae.
So the microphones are set up, the wires run, and we're sitting
on ready. What you will hear on this CD is exactly what will
go down tonight in the old potato barn under a cool, clear spring
night in the country outside of Como.
God
bless Mississippi and pass the antiseptic."
Jimbo Mathus, Clarksdale, 2003
