Mike Munson - Underwood (2023) Hi-Res

With nine tracks of both traditional and original music, Underwood solidifies Mike Munson’s place in the blues genre. Inspired by a prompt from Minnesota craft whiskey maker, Rick Schneider, after a night of music on his front porch, Munson recorded the album live in two short days at Underwood Recording Studios in Minneapolis with no overdubs and no compiled takes. The guidance and creativity of Mark Stockert behind the soundboard combined with his unconventional and thoughtful microphone placement builds sonics that harken back to the juke joints and early electrified recording sessions of country blues. With this collection of songs, Munson demonstrates how much he has learned over the years from mentors like Jimmy "Duck" Holmes (Bentonia, MS) through numerous southern sojourns.

Munson continues to use simplicity, melancholy and drive to add another chapter to the story of American music. He relies on his innate skills on the instrument with little help from effects or accompaniment. From Robert Johnson’s “Stones in my Passway” to the traditional tune “Poor Black Mattie,” Munson blends his guitar prowess with the gritty tone that has become his signature.

“Sailing For You” and “Saint Anne” exemplify his songwriting skill, both lyrically and melodically, with heavy rhythms overlaid with intricate fingerpicking complimented by stories that keep darkness and light deeply intertwined. The four original tracks on the album were all written while on a weeklong artistic retreat in a cabin in rural Wisconsin in winter of 2023 sponsored by the Two Chickadees Project.

Underwood the album gives the listener a clear glimpse of Underwood the studio, the unadulterated sound of one person with one electric guitar in a basement room of a small Minneapolis home. Somehow, it also transports the listener to a different time and place where that one person sits on the front porch of a small house in the country with an acoustic guitar and sings the blues.