Customer Reviews

Gone Woman Blues: Country Blues Collection

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Rory Block is probably at her strongest on country blues and gospel numbers, which show off beautifully the techniques she picked up in childhood, listening to masters like Robert Johnson, Son House, Skip James, John Hurt and many others. (She even studied with many of them.) The "Gone Woman Blues" compilation includes some of her best country blues cuts from a recording career that stretches back to the mid-1970s. She is a master of the guitar and her remarkable vocal range perfectly fits the country blues style, allowing her to rove all over the scale in harmony with the sliding treble notes she coaxes from her instrument. I've seen some reviewers sniff at her for being too white, but I've read the same sily criticism of Taj Mahal and Eric Bibb, and I'm not buying it. Those who like acoustic country blues shoud let this artist take them soaring with her. With a collection of her best, how could anyone go wrong? Definitely a five-star release.

Rory Block is a close student of country blues, evident in the 24 songs collected here from 5 of her previous albums. Not a copyist per se, she inflects enough stylistic characteristics of the masters she adores in her versions to remind those familiar with the originals exactly where she's coming from. The way she does Tommy Johnson's falsetto near-howls on BIG ROAD BLUES and COOL DRINK OF WATER produces an affect just as haunting as on the originals. Her deep, smoky voice and the way she ends many of her vocal lines with a near sigh or sudden loss of breath are very effective. Her choice of material is fabulous and she has the pipes and guitar technique to pull off these masterful works from Robert Johnson (her version of COME ON IN MY KITCHEN is among the best I've ever heard; only Taj Mahal's can compare) to Henry Thomas's RAILROADIN' SOME to Bessie Smith's DO YOUR DUTY. Each is a delight to hear. Country blues fans should love this album - it's a total knockout.

Rory is the best--bar none. The disc is best heard in one sitting to comprehend the scope and power of her delivery. After you hear the disc, then try to catch her live--an incredible experience.

A delightful collection of country blues and gospel. I enjoyed the spare arrangements and clean production. My favorite number is an acapella gospel song "Be Ready When He Comes". A longtime fan of Rory's I was very pleased with her work, it was almost as good a fix as seeing her live.

This woman, her guitar, and country blues are one. This is her best CD to demonstrate that. If you like country blues, you won't regret getting "Gone Woman Blues". Rory is the genuine thing.

While Rory plays some of the greatest classic blues on this disc, much of the impact is lost because of a very muddy mix on the sound. Country blues is mimimalist music and is best heard in a very clean mix. Several of the songs on the disc sound like they were recorded in a very reverberent church rather then a studio. This is most damaging in that Rory's excellent guitar work is pushed too far into the background where it loses much of its impact. Sound quality aside though, Rory is one of the essential modern blues singers and one of the few to carry on the country blues tradition in the present times. If you pick up this disc and don't already have them you should quickly acquire the original artists renditions of these songs, beginning with Robert Johnson and Son House.

Can a black man from the Mississippi delta be reincarnated as a white girl from NY with a wicked guitar and incredible vocal abilities? Check out this recording and then draw your own conclusions. Not many people, even many modern black bluesmen, can play this music and make it sound "right", but Rory almost invariably does. And she doesn't slavishly mimic, but tastefully reinterprets. This is one of her most successful recordings; truly breathtaking.

While Rory plays some of the greatest classic blues on this disc, much of the impact is lost because of a very muddy mix on the sound. Country blues is mimimalist music and is best heard in a very clean mix. Several of the songs on the disc sound like they were recorded in a very reverberent church rather then a studio. This is most damaging in that Rory's excellent guitar work is pushed too far into the background where it loses much of its impact. Sound quality aside though, Rory is one of the essential modern blues singers and one of the few to carry on the country blues tradition in the present times. If you pick up this disc and don't already have them you should quickly acquire the original artists renditions of these songs, beginning with Robert Johnson and Son House.

I owe Rory Block one. Here is why. During the recently completed misbegotten American presidential campaign season I took more heat that one could shake a stick at for using the title of one of country blues master Skip James' songs, "I'd Rather Be A Devil That To Be That Woman's Man", for some political blogs that I wrote in regard to the Hillary Clinton Democratic Party candidacy. For months I took it on the chin from my feminist friends as exhibiting some form of latent hostility to women, especially women candidates for president. (By the way, that was a totally false accusation. I would have been more than willing to vote for Victoria Woodhull on the Woman's Equality ticket in 1872.) There one day I remembered through the mist of time singer/songwriter Rory Block's change up rendition of the James' classic which forms the headline to this entry. Thanks, Rory.

But more than that, thanks for this great album of country blues classics some famous, some a little obscure and known only to serious aficionados but all well worth placing in the album with the quirky little Rory Block treatment that makes many of the songs her own. Oh, did I also mention her virtuoso strong guitar playing. Well, that too. I have gone on and on elsewhere in this space about the old time women blues singers, mostly black, like Bessie Smith, Victoria Spivey and Ida Cox. I have also spilled some ink on more modern, mainly white, women blues singers like Bonnie Raitt, Maria Muldaur and a local talent here in Boston, Les Sampou, and their admirable (and necessary) efforts to carry on this proud tradition. Rory belongs right up there with these women.

But, enough homage. You get the drift. So what is good here? Of course the above-mentioned tune (named "Devil Got My Man" here). Thanks, again Rory. A couple of nice covers of the legendary Robert Johnson's "Terraplane Blues' and "Hellhound On My Trail". I have mentioned in reviewing Johnson's work that his vocals are reedy and thin. Here Rory gives full-bodied treatment to the songs. Of course one must pay respects, as well, to her own CD title track "Gone Woman Blues".

A couple of other Skip James tunes also deserve mention, "Be Ready When He Comes" (remember Skip turned to preaching after his very short first blues career) and "Cypress Grove". Ms. Block also does a very sexy version of Hattie Hart's double entendre "I Let My Daddy Do That". Here is the kicker though. Bessie Smith made "Do Your Duty" rattle the house back in the day. I like Rory's cover better. That, my friends, is high praise indeed as I was practically spoon-fed on Bessie back in my youth.

I just bought this CD, my first by her, and am somewhat disappointed in it. Well, lets just say I couldn't listen to it anymore this morning after about half of it.

The musicianship is excellent. The vocals, though powerful, are so affected that it became unlistenable to me.

I can hear that she has her own voice here and there, but to a greater degree she's trying to emulate something, and it gets grating to keep listening to it.

I also found the CD titles of all her stuff to be a bit affected too. Is she afraid that someone will forget she's a woman?

Gone Woman Blues, I am Every woman (oh puhleeze), Mama's Blues, etc, etc. Makes me wonder if she's jockeying for the Holly Neer Award in the Delta Blues category.

If I could find another CD of her's where the vocals come from her heart and not from her marketing plan, I'd buy it.