Customer Reviews

Just Do Me Right

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

 

 

This is one of my favorite CDs in my collection, and it upsets me to see people put it down.
First off, the recording quality is fine. (Since when did recording quality really matter... do scratches on original Robert Johnson make the music terrible? I think it adds to it.) It's just not the case with this album. The recording quality is pretty good; not perfect, but unless you're listening through a generic ghetto blaster in a tin shack, it'll sound great. Turn it up.
Second, the folks at Fat Possum are doing what needs to be done to keep blues alive, and I don't think that Asie is spinning in his grave because they released his excellent music. Some of the songs are raw and uncut Delta-style stuff, others are raging boom-sessions ("Need My Help" makes Muddy Waters look impotent.) It hits the whole range. Sometimes it's for sipping on the stoop, sometimes it's for burning the juke down.
"Oh, it was so NICE when it sounded like that good-old acoustic porch blues, but this is too much for my delicate sensabilities. I'm going to go buy one of the white-washed BB King albums and some Leon Redbone...." Give me a freaking break.
If you can't handle the grit, this album ain't for you. If you want a variety of great original blues, I guarantee this album won't disappoint. As a blues DJ, I've gotten requests for tracks off this more often than most albums I spin. That's for a reason.

These started as straight-up Asie Payton recordings. They were rough and tough. Some remain in that form, but others have been tampered with. Though some folks enjoy the results of the tampering, it certainly does not make weakhearts out of those who wanted the pure, ORIGINAL music, AS ASIE PAYTON RECORDED IT. This stuff was raw and real. What Fat Possum did, regardless of whether or not one enjoys it, was to add instrumentation to make the originals more pallatable to modern ears. Now, there is nothing wrong with remixing and adding to the tunes, as long as we can also hear ALL of Asie Payton's rare original recodings as HE HIMSELF performed them. If Fat Possum wants to remix and create new tracks out of the real raw recordings, they should make a longer disc that has ALL of the original straight-up recordings, AS WELL AS the recordings that they've tinkered with. They could also have a double disc set, or two seperate single discs, if need be; one featuring the original untainted recordings, and one the funky remixes/overdubbed stuff.

This whole controversy does not have to exist, and everyone could be made happy with great ease. So don't become upset with other consumers because they want either the pure originals or altered versions, be mad at Fat Possum, because it should be a non-issue.

This cd is my favorite of all Fat Possum releases. It is down and dirty blues with down and dirty remixes. I love the mixture of Asie Payton's original recordings juxtaposed against the remixed versions. Fat Possum's style of blues has many detractors, but so did Bob Dylan's electric music or Howling Wolf's first electric album. The Blues is a continually evolving life form. It will change and progress whether you want it to or not.

It's like this, Fat Possum has been busy doing two things 1) looking up and shaking out the real living bluesmen from the small towns and backroads of the Delta and North Mississippi hill country better than any other label on the planet and 2) when they find 'em ... they have a knack for introducing them and pairing them up with loud, funky, bluesy up-to-date sounds and instrumentalists in a way that works unlike any before. Take RL Burnside and his collaborations with the North Mississippi Allstars and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - perfect and totally modern pairings which Burnside was definitely on-board with. Drop into Ground Zero in Clarksdale on any old night and you'll hear the net result! Maybe Asie wasn't around to endorse Fat Possum's fusion of his stuff with the new spin. My guess though is, had he been, he would've been in the studio at the drop of a hat, running with the young guys on synthesizers and whatever else they might have wanted to use and Fat Possum's guy on the mixing board looping and synching at-will! One thing the blues have ALWAYS been is both traditional and spontaneous and innovative - it's called survival. All Asie wanted was for the world (and some wimmens, in particular) to "Just Do Me Right" - it's genuine and new Mississippi Delta Blues! Buy the cd, you're sure to dig it!

What Fat possum did to this album really blows!! Tracks like "I got a friend" start out with a nice southern delta blues sound and then out of nowhere it turns into porn music. The audio effects and computerized editing really messed up the original sound of Asie Payton.

With Asie Payton dead the folks at Fat Possum have scraped the bottom of the barrel of tapes to make this cd. It sounds like demos, out takes, rejected songs or practice sessions from different times some solo some with different backings .Im a big fan of Fat Possums style but this is the worst bunch of crap they have ever released.