Customer Reviews

Fattening Frogs for Snakes

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These are poems about the blues, the people who made the blues; an honoring of those people who gave our country the rootstock from which all our current music has flowered. To those people living outside of New Orleans, the relevance of the blues might seem to be an exercise in the exotic; for those living outside of New Orleans, any music beyond today's top ten tunes might seem a strange and foreign entity; music is a part of daily life in New Orleans--the only city in America where music is always in the air, breathed by citizens of every caste. How fitting that Sinclair's book should be published by the unfunded Surregional Press, also of New Orleans, and of a press run of less than two thousand copies. The commitment to culture is exemplified by both press and author, a commitment which has not yet bowed to lack of economic reward--although our collective financial fashions may undo us all.

John Sinclair is clearly a very big fan of the delta blues, and his spoken word tales of famous bluesmen of past are very colourful and entertaining. The music behind his reading is raw and energetic. It would be a great album, but for the misplaced female backup singers behind him, doing the occasional "woo wooooo" or similar. Sinclair's Full Circle album is a much better choice than this one. Same idea, but much, much cooler.

The CD Fattening Frogs for Snakes by John Sinclair is a little known gem. It has raw, brilliantly played delta blues backing Sinclair's spoken word songs about the lives of blues masters like Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Johnson, Robert Palmer, etc. These are compelling stories enhanced by the Delta Blues sound, the down home roots music you do not hear very much any more.

Interchangeable with the Full Circle album. Don't worry about the background singers. They sound so much alike you won't know which one you're listening to anyway.