Customer Reviews

What's Wrong With You

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

upon the first listen to "what's wrong with you" i knew that this was one of those albums that never would get old. from the first note, you know that you are embarking on a one-in-a-million musical journey. if you're a mississippi blues fan, there is no excuse to pass this up. there isn't a weak moment; even the two tracks with drums ("my baby's gone," "what's wrong with you") are understated and, well, spooky. the guitar work is ethereal and obviously the product of genius, esp. on tracks 2 & 4. (a brief aside: i've tried to figure out his tunings, including asking sources at his label, and THEY haven't figured it out.) you won't hear anything this original for a long, long time.

Of all the top-notch albums put out by Fat Possum, Robert Belfour's What's Wrong With You is second only to Junior Kimbrough's All Night Long (which I think is one of the top 25 Blues albums of all-time). Robert Belfour has it all: Hypnotic, yet intricate guitar work, a highly expressive voice, perfect timing, and a real feel for the power of nuance and understatement. If you are into the work of Junior Kimbrough, Lightnin' Hopkins and Mississippi Fred McDowell, then Robert Belfour is your man.

There's been a voodoo shortage in the Mississippi hills since bluesman Junior Kimbrough died two years ago. But Robert Belfour evokes some of the same dark, roiling spirits with the slithery guitar lines of Bad Luck and other numbers on this debut CD.

One of the best things abt this release is the digipak cover which is a perfect visual analogue to the music - wolfmans face is barely framed & like a francis bacon portrait seeps & bleeds into the viewer. The music is gorgeous - rich rumbling guitar & voice (with occasional rudimentary drums) - so deep it sounds like it's coming from the bowels of the earth. It's difficult to believe that one man can produce so much from so little. The world he inhabits seems limited & restricted (as any one mans world ultimately will be) but the music is so fluid & sensual & unified (so much 'one thing') that it bleeds out of its confines & affects on the deep level of our humanity. Basically this is music that instructs you on how to be a better human being. The man was born 1940 & this is his first release. Thanks to fatpossum for 'discovering' him.

Hypnotic, intense, and deeply soulful - those are three ways to describe this amazing debut album by Robert Belfour. His covers of Junior Kimbrough's "Black Mattie" and "Done Got Old" recast the songs in an intimate, acoustic context, thus giving them even more emotional power than the originals, and his own compositions are just as impressive. Belfour's voice is worn in like a fine old catcher's mitt, and his folk-blues finger-picking will make you think you hear two (or more) guitars playing at once. And if that ain't enough, he even includes a touching love song to his wife ("Norene")! Definitely the best new album of acoustic blues I've heard in years!

The reviews below say it all; except for the one 3 star review. Apparently Belfour was relunctant to record and spent most of years working construction.

His work is original, inspiring, haunting and beautiful. His acoustic guitar is clear and sharp; while his vocals are deeply felt and soulful without being depressing.

This guy is an American original; there's no overproduction here but pure, original talent. The other reviewers are correct, this could be one of the great contemporary blues CDs in the last 20 years.

The courage of this label to record all of this kind of Delta Blues musicians almost unknown by the most bluesfans from everywhere must, be recognized as an excellent work to promote and improve our taste by this kind of music.This is a music that seems to be the same,no matter what North Mississippi Delta musician is playing.And they are many,such Jr. Kimbrough,R.L. Burnside;Jesse Mae;Bud Spires;and many others who experienced that difficult kind of living in poor and poverty conditions,and transformed that feelings in this original way to play blues.I really recomend a view of Robert Palmer's DVD "Deep Blues" to a perfectly vision of the conditions of the environment,around that people.They were playing at that Jook Joints,and perhaps that was the only way to express all of the laments,the suffered conditions they lived.There were two extremes at that time .To go to the churches,or in contradition,to that ugly Jook Joints.
And many of them,choosed this second way.That richness blues was only begining and what we are listening now,is a small view of that fertile cultural movement,restricted to that Mississippi Hills!!Some tracks in this cd,sounds like have influenced Bob Dylan in his way to play and to sing!!!!Another Fat Possum's great contribution to the history of the Blues!!

Robert Belfour keeps the hillcountry blues alive; alone, he is the boss now that his friends Rule and Junior are gone. He sings his blues like a Cherokee chief, what a thrill! Wolfman is weeping because the days are gone, Norene has left and he"done got old".
Along with Charles Caldwell, one of the best albums of Fatpossum.

If you can listen to "My Baby's Gone" & "Walkin' the Floor" and not empathize with Robert Belfour then you don't know blues music...that's what blues is all about, forcing someone to empathize with emotions that are portrayed through the music. Robert Belfour has done that for me. Excellent work!!