Customer Reviews

You Better Keep Still

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Of the 3 T-Model Ford releases as of this date, this is by far the weakest. While there are a some good songs, there are several failed experiments (the remix is very bad). The raw guitar energy that characterizes his other two discs seems to come up short here.

I just had to comment on the previous reviewers accusations. There are too many fantastic Ft Possum releases (like RL Burnside's "Burnside on Burnside) for this theory to have any validity. I do think that the folks at Fat Possum understand some of the underlying connections betweeen Punk and Blues and have managed to market their music into places where there is not normally much interest. I think this is great as it expands everyone's listening and cultural horizons.

I find it quite cynical to take a poor example of the record label and use it to put forth some kind of racist conspiracy throry. Too dismiss an entire label's artists as being untalented and exploited based on a bad record astonishes me.

James "T-Model" Ford is the stereotypical old bluesman from rural Mississippi. However, he records for Blues/indie-rock label, Fat Possum out of Oxford, Mississippi. Ford's first album, _Pee Wee Get My Gun_, was "primitive" or lo-fi, up-beat, and had a peculiar emphasis on violence. _You Better_ doesn't live up to the quality or the intensity of the first. The album highlights Ford's idiosyncratic personality with songs like "These Eyes," in which Ford imitates a girlfriend's voice. A pretty good version of "Catfish Blues" also appears on the album as "The Old Number." An interesting blues remix also turns up on the album. "Pop Pop Pop" is in the same vein as the material on fellow Fat Possum artist, R. L. Burnside's Come On In. Overall, I believe, this album suffers from underproduction. A lot of the material sounds like a first take. T-Model Ford can play good music, but some rehearsal and refinement wouldn't hurt the quality of the music.

This is T-Model sitting under a tree inviting all people to come and enjoy his presence. Talk to him about taildragger and shake his hand and thank him for catching the world by the tail and taking humanity along. No stone unturned, everyone is called to help his life unfold. Ask him questions and he will direct you to a better day, playing two guitars with one hand, enjoying a drink, admiring beautiful women, singing to them his song of courtship. The day is long and time is short. Grab onto T-Model's cane and dance to his rhythms, enjoy this music and make his voice heard around the world. A reveiw by Olen Perkins

This is T-Model sitting under a tree inviting all people to come and enjoy his presence. Talk to him about taildragger and shake his hand and thank him for catching the world by the tail and taking humanity along. No stone unturned, everyone is called to help his life unfold. Ask him questions and he will direct you to a better day, playing two guitars with one hand, enjoying a drink, admiring beautiful women, singing to them his song of courtship. The day is long and time is short. Grab onto T-Model's cane and dance to his rhythms, enjoy this music and make his voice heard around the world. A reveiw by Olen Perkins

I bought this because I have been interested in the music coming out of Fat Possum records and have heard some compilations and also full CDs by R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. I heard that T-Model was in the same class as those two. But I have to admit I am disappointed by this CD. Some of it sounds like T-Model just made this stuff up off the top of his head as he recorded it. Some if it is good. Here Comes Papa is a harrowing song about an abusive father. To The Left To The Right is just a fun song to listen to. And Look What All You Got was ably covered by Buddy Guy on Sweet Tea, his tribute to Mississippi hill country blues. T-Model manages a nice cover of Catfish Blues (titled The Old Number here). But the rest just sounds like they couldn't keep T-Model sober long enough to record a full CD so they threw in a remix and some noodling around in the studio to fill it out. I'm not going to give up on ol' T-Model yet, and I'll try to seek out Pee Wee Get My Gun and see if this guy is as good as they say he is.

This disc is the most experiemental of T-models four discs. So some of the tracks may seem so strange that they don't fit in with T-model's style. I however think that the experiemental tracks are actually pretty cool and just make T-model look more loose and willing to change. The only two real complaints about this album are the fact that They didn't edit out T-model blowing his nose at the beginning of the Remix. I don't mind when they have him talking, but it's just grose to hear him blow his nose. Plus "If I had Wings part 1" Sucks. The thing is, like a lot of great bluesmen. T-model doesn't have a great voice but when it is coupled with his guitar it works. But when he just sings it doesn't work. "If I had wings Pt 2" is good though. I know I have pointed out all the bad points of this album, so hear are the good points. I love the John Lee Hooker Style stomp of "To the Left to the Right", and "These Eyes" is hilarious. He also does a great version of catfish blues, which is titled "that old number". In fact If you just skip the first track, the rest of the Cd is great. Especially "Come Back Home".

Of the 3 T-Model Ford releases as of this date, this is by far the weakest. While there are a some good songs, there are several failed experiments (the remix is very bad). The raw guitar energy that characterizes his other two discs seems to come up short here.

I just had to comment on the previous reviewers accusations. There are too many fantastic Ft Possum releases (like RL Burnside's "Burnside on Burnside) for this theory to have any validity. I do think that the folks at Fat Possum understand some of the underlying connections betweeen Punk and Blues and have managed to market their music into places where there is not normally much interest. I think this is great as it expands everyone's listening and cultural horizons.

I find it quite cynical to take a poor example of the record label and use it to put forth some kind of racist conspiracy throry. Too dismiss an entire label's artists as being untalented and exploited based on a few bad records astonishes me.

I don't have a problem with rough-sounding blues. If they're authentic. But the formula of all these Fat Possum releases brings up some uncomfortable questions.

Most Fat Possum releases follow this formula. Find an old drunk guy in Mississippi who can play guitar. Record a gang of raw, under-rehearsed songs in one afternoon, and stick on an extended sampled dance remix with hip-hop/Beck-style moves to hook the kids in. That's pretty much the Fat Possum formula, for which they get a lot more praise than they deserve.

What we're supposed to believe, of course, is that the rawer it is, the more authentic it is. But the truth is that T-Model Ford, at least on this record, ain't much by anybody's standards. Most of these songs are blues standards, badly played, and barely reworked to avoid copyright issues. The few originals are half-completed at best, and "If I Had Wings" should never have been recorded. And I think we could all have done without the sound of T-Model blowing his nose.

This record is pretty tawdry and lame. I can dig Andre Williams, Howlin' Wolf, early John Lee Hooker, Blind Willie Johnson; I'm no stranger to rough, raw blues. But there's something innately phony about this record that scrapes my nerves raw.

"You Better Keep Still" is as calculated as a Britney Spears record, and there's more than a faint whiff of exploitation about the whole thing. It isn't helped by the disco remix by the supposedly hip alterna-dude remix artists. It also isn't helped by the fact that T-Model is really not very good, even by the admittedly relaxed musical standards of country blues.

I'm not a blues purist by any means, but this record, like a lot of Fat Possum recordings, smells like a cynical, postmodern, exploitative white boy's vision of the blues. It's almost as if someone who hated the blues decided to form a band that would finally kill off the blues, and chose an ancient, senile drunk to front the band in order to divert any criticism and to fool rock critics into thinking this was somehow "the real thing."

And that, quite honestly, is what I think is happening here. This is an anti-blues record. It's the sound of a sick old man being exploited and a rich white boy laughing his way to the bank. I have no time and no use for this piece of garbage, and neither should you.