The new Fat Possum Records release, Sunday Night - The Songs of Junior Kimbrough, manages to shatter the assumptions that white boys can't play the blues and that all tribute albums suck. Here, both of those theories delightfully fall flat on their faces.
Tribute albums usually start from a heartfelt expression but end up being poorly executed, mostly because of over-enthusiasm, legal entanglements, or a combination of the two. So, in most cases, you end up with a tentative collection of obscure songs that won't entice any listener to dig further, performed by a line-up of bands that have enough trouble selling their own records.
Somehow, the Fat Possum team managed to avoid all the classic tribute record pitfalls with Sunday Night....
The late north Mississippi bluesman "Junior" Kimbrough, who died in 1998, isn't as well known as he should be. He didn't record his first album until 1992, when Fat Possum signed him. Junior also owned a juke joint, and every Sunday night - well, you get the idea. (The shack on the cover is, in fact, said actual juke joint.)
The blues, real blues music, should beguile you, seduce you, entice you, scare you just a little. It can either make a hole in your heart or fill the one that's there. It should make you want to dance or just close your eyes and listen. Amazingly, every track on this record will do one or more of those things to you.
With the people who championed Junior Kimbrough at the helm, it's no wonder that Sunday Night... is a stunning success. The thing that might get your attention is the inclusion of the first two songs, featuring new recordings by the reunited Iggy and the Stooges. And it well should, because those two numbers most of all personify the aforementioned qualities of the blues and then some. However, to focus on those two tracks alone does the rest of the album a terrible disservice.
To get it out of the way, the Stooges perform two very different covers of "You Better Run" that sound like they were recorded 30 years ago, or at least in a world in which the Stooges hadn't broken up. Iggy invited Junior Kimbrough to open for him on his 1996 tour (Of course, when I saw him on that tour, I got the Demolition Doll Rods instead).
The Stooges were urban bluesmen, so it's no surprise that Iggy performs "You Better Run" like he owns it. It's dark, it's loud, it's disturbing and it inspires the kind of fear you have driving down a dark country road in an old car and hoping you don't break down.
Article comments
1 - HW Saxton
I dig the hell out of Junior Kimbrough.
I feel this CD falls short though.But it
is worth the $ however, for The Stooges
track alone.It's just pounding!!!!!!!!!!
It sounds like something that could have
been on "Funhouse".It's just nasty assed
white boy garage blues raunch n roll.
2 - Temple Stark
Wooohooo boobies. Oh, my mistake that's Iggy's Pop.
I don't know how anyone survives in the world with the name Junior, but there ya go.
I point you to the Alabama music review site of Advance.net.
Your review's up there, loud and proud. Please go and tell your contacts that hundreds of thousands more readers will now have access to your review.
Thanks Caryn, Temple
3 - Eric Olsen
really super review Caryn, and excellent points about the inadequacies of most tribute albums. I am inspired to give it a serious whirl - thanks!