While the first cut on the disc "1010°" is a three gun assault upon the blues, with all three showing off their speed and power, track number 2, "All The Time", seems to rise right out of the Mississippi Mud with its almost gospel tinged chorus, and slow, funky groove. Guitar solos explode out of the soil once or twice, showing heat can burn slowly as easily as it can fast.
Songs like "You Don’t Know", "Too Much Too Hide", and "Mississippi Lawnmower Blues" show these three not only have the chops, they have the feel for blues. They can pull off the acoustic sounds that will make the purists happy and sing out with the best of them.
"Blues Caravan" is their take on being three young white Europeans playing black music where it comes from. Not only does it prove they have a great sense of humour, especially when it comes to laughing at themselves, but it lets them show off their ability to play a more traditional electric blues.
Are Aynsley Lister, Erja Lyytinen, and Ian Parker the next Eric Clapton, Etta James, and Buddy Guy? I hope not, for their sakes, because they should be their own musicians and not be content to imitate the styles of anyone who's come before. Every musician has to bring their own stuff to the blues or it won't be emotionally honest.
The blues are an attitude as well as a musical style, and it doesn't matter how fast or slow you play the guitar, whether it's an electric or acoustic guitar, if you don't have the feeling you don't have anything. On Pilgrimage: Mississippi To Memphis, these three young players not only show they've mastered the chops to play anything from Delta acoustic to funky urban blues, but they have the soul necessary to make the sound honest.
I don't think anyone needs to worry about the future of the blues; we may just need to look further afield than our own backyard to find it.
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1 - Connie Phillips
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