Al Cook - Victrola Blues (1994)

Tracklist

01. Bad Boy Blues
02. Georgia Blues
03. Mississippi Blues
04. Blue Prayer
05. The Sunday Suit
06. My Baby Left Me This Mornin'
07. St. Luis Woman Blues
08. I'm Down With The Blues
09. Mister Blues
10. East Coast Rag
11. Mean Old Alabam'
12. The Worried Blues
13. Cook It Up
14. Down South
15. Beale Street Breakdown
16. Bad Things On My Mind
17. Mississippi River Blues
18. Let Me Be Your Honeydripper
19. My Sweet Lovin' Mama
20. At The Barrelhouse
21. Washboard Boogie
22. No Kind Hearted Woman's Slave
23. The Bluebird Blues
24. Death Valley Blues

This album is a joyous yet painstakingly authentic modern recreation of blues styles prevalent during the late '20s and early '30s, and Al Cook could have been a potential rival to John Hammond, Jr., based on the evidence here -- as it is, he sounds like he's channeling the sounds of Paramount Records from its early-'30s heyday. He plays unamplified, mostly on the guitar (though he does switch to piano on a couple of cuts), accompanied here and there by harmonica, spoons, a drum, and maybe a rhythm guitarist; his influences in playing and singing are Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton, and Son House, all of whom seem to be almost voicing their stuff, seance-like, through him. His playing is technically superb, but even more important is the fact that Cook seems to feel the music in his playing and singing, to the point where he even gives convincing spoken introductions and performances that don't seem incongruous at all. Done on a portable four-track unit, the material also gets about as near to the jerry-rigged set-ups used to record the likes of Patton and Jefferson as one is likely to approach in modern time. Anyone who wants more of the kind of work that Hammond was doing on Vanguard Records in the early/middle-'60s will not go wrong with this disc, which is a loving recreation of authentic Delta blues sounds of the early '30s, unaffected and honest in its execution.

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