Sometimes the best music is made when friends get together and play their favorite old songs. That’s what happened when Geoff Muldaur pulled together a one-off group he dubbed Texas Sheiks. It started as a way to help Texas singer-songwriter-guitarist Stephen Bruton deal with a cancer diagnosis and treatment, and ended up as a memorial to Bruton, who passed away in May 2009.
The band’s name is a reference and homage to the Mississippi Sheiks, a legendary 1930s blues and jug band. Texas Sheiks is filled with legendary names too, including Muldaur and Jim Kweskin on vocals and stringed instruments, Cindy Cashdollar on resonator guitars, fiddler Suzy Thompson and of course Bruton, who here mostly plays mandolin. A new name to me is Johnny Nicholas, who sings a supple high lead on a couple of tracks and plays various instruments. Rounding out the ensemble are two Austinites, Floyd Domino on piano and Bruce Hughes on bass fiddle.
Geoff Muldaur is one of the best blues interpreters in the world (of any color), and it’s a treat to hear him cruising through such classics as “The World Is Going Wrong,” “Poor Boy,” the toe-tapping “Sweet To Mama” and the slow and sultry “Please, Baby” and “Cairo.”
Jim Kweskin goes for the jug band numbers, including the old Irving Jones minstrel song “Under the Chicken Tree,” the trad “Blues in the Bottle,” which was something of a hit in the early ’60s folk revival as recorded by the Holy Modal Rounders on their first album, and the double entendre-laden “Fan It.” The latter was also covered this year by Willie Nelson and Asleep At The Wheel — there’s a coincidence for you.
Johnny Nicholas, who now is a Texas restaurateur, has played in Chicago blues bands, and in Asleep At The Wheel in the ’70s. He packs a lot of soul into his renditions of Skip James’s “Hard Time Killin’ Floor” and Robert Johnson’s “Travellin’ Blues.” For something a little lighter, there’s Big Bill Broonzy’s “All By Myself,” with Suzy Thompson on accordion and some superb dobro from Cindy Cashdollar. Bassist Bruce Hughes, who played with Bruton in the Austin band The Resentments (along with Jon Dee Graham and Jud Newcomb), does a grand job on the fast swinging shuffle of “Don’t Sell It, Don’t Give It Away,” with its catchy chorus of “yes baby yes, no baby no.”
They wrap it up with the delightful instrumental “Yellow Dog Blues” by W.C. Handy, and leave you wanting more.
Muldaur, Elijah Wald and T Bone Burnett contributed notes to the package. Altogether, it’s a wonderful tribute to Bruton, and to American acoustic music from the early 20th century.
(Tradition & Moderne, 2009)
