Precious Bryant - Fool Me Good (2002)

There's nothing precious about this Georgia blueswoman except her name. Bryant's first all-solo album is packed with stomping blues and spirituals built on her own fusion of fingerpicking, one-chord boogie, Piedmont-style strumming, and African American fife-and-drum-band rhythms. She puts all that in the service of a dry-but-mellow voice that dances up into its thin high register to enhance the joy in her percolating melodies. She's happiest when singing the Lord's praises in "When the Saints Go Marching In" and "Don't Let the Devil Ride," but the graceful ragtime instrumental "Georgia Buck" is equally blithe. And her blues, including "Broke and Ain't Got a Dime" and "Black Rat Swing," are full of sassy energy. The heavy beat she pulls out of her Gibson electric on "Don't You Wanna Jump" sounds straight from Mississippi, splitting the difference between John Lee Hooker and Jessie Mae Hemphill. But what's truly amazing about this album, produced by North Mississippi Allstars road manager Amos Harvey, is that although Bryant is only 60, it sounds as if her repertoire and delivery have been completely unaffected by the past half-century. This is the real country blues.