Leo Welch - I Don't Prefer No Blues

Size: 82,8 MB
Time: 35:16
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2015
Styles: Electric Delta Blues
Art: Full

01. Poor Boy (2:07)
02. Girl In The Holler (3:46)
03. I Don't Know Her Name (2:45)
04. Goin' Down Slow (4:12)
05. Cadillac Baby (2:46)
06. Too Much Wine (3:04)
07. I Woke Up (4:51)
08. So Many Turnrows (4:06)
09. Pray On (3:48)
10. Sweet Black Angel (3:47)

In 2014, 81-year-old Delta guitar wrangler and blues shouter Leo Bud Welch released Sabougla Voices, his debut album. With Welch having spent his adult life playing in church, this collection of raw gospel songs was greeted with excitement on the blues scene. Welch toured the world playing not only clubs but festival stages. Part of his deal with Fat Possum's Big Legal Mess was that if he got to record his Sunday morning gospel album, he'd deliver them its other side: a set of blues tunes from Saturday night's juke joint heart. Produced by label boss Bruce Watson, I Don't Prefer No Blues is woolly, frenetic, jagged, and raucous. That said, one of its finest tracks is the standard "Poor Boy," an outlier musically and lyrically. The lone track produced by Jimbo Mathus (who plays guitar elsewhere) commences with Welch and Shardé Thomas' mournful twinned moans followed by a snare, an upright bass, and an acoustic guitar backed by a choir to complete the funereal lament. It's the emotional and spiritual bridge to Sabougla Voices. From here on out, that bridge gets all but burned in the hedonistic fire that follows. "Girl in the Holler” is a swampy choogler filled with unspoken desire as Welch and Mathus move back and forth with riffs and fills atop a rattling drum kit. On "I Don't Know Her Name," Mathus adds distortion and a fuzz guitar freakout to his stomping uptempo blues swagger. A Farfisa organ squalls in the backdrop as Welch literally begins to howl his lust like a dog. Other standards, such as the sludgy "Goin' Down Slow" and the manic strut of "Cadillac Baby," are delivered with authority that testifies. "Too Much Wine," played with wah-wah guitar, organ, and clattering snares, is dirty and funky; it's a juke joint floor stomper. While the theme of "Pray On" is gospel, its form is revved-up rock and blasted blues with the band grooving on stun. The set ends with a razor-sharp reading of Robert Nighthawk's classic "Sweet Black Angel." In it, the electric Delta music of R.L Burnside meets the early Chicago sound of Muddy Waters, bringing the tradition as it opens up on rock & roll. I Don't Prefer No Blues is drenched in lineage and history, but refuses to be bound by them. Simply by playing his own interpretation of the music he's been surrounded with all his life, Welch has given us a blues album for the ages. ~Thom Jurek

I Don't Prefer No Blues MP3
I Don't Prefer No Blues FLAC

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Leo Welch - Sabougla Voices

Size: 78,1 MB
Time: 33:08
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2014
Styles: Blues Gospel
Art: Front

01. Praise His Name (3:47)
02. You Can't Hurry God (2:20)
03. Me And My Lord (3:43)
04. Take Care Of Me Lord (3:44)
05. Mother Loves Her Children (3:10)
06. Praying Time (4:33)
07. Somebody Touched Me (3:23)
08. A Long Journey (3:10)
09. His Holy Name (3:31)
10. The Lord Will Make A Way (1:42)

Review:
Although the blues and gospel are classified as different kinds of music genres, they aren't mutually exclusive, and like every other kind of vernacular American music, there has always been a lot of cross-pollination going on, and since musicians are musicians, playing secular music in a jook on Saturday night isn't substantially different than taking the same set of riffs into church on Sunday morning, with different lyrics, of course. And even that isn't all that difficult, since singing about loss and singing about redemption are really two sides of the same coin, a part of the same conversation. Leo Welch understands this, and he's had to. Born and raised in Sabougla in the hill country of Mississippi, Welch worked over 30 years in the region's logging camps, spending his nights and days off playing picnics, house parties, and jook joints, developing a raw and urgent electric guitar style that put him in a long line of Mississippi trance guitarists that included R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. When the blues gigs began to get rarer in the mid-'70s, Welch simply packed up his approach and blues prowess and took them to the churches, developing a style that combined the grit and dirt of Mississippi blues guitar with the passionate urgency of Southern call-and-response gospel, which puts him squarely in the lineage of another great gospel guitarist, Mississippi Fred McDowell. This debut set, released when Welch was 82, is pretty much his church set done up straight with no frills in a recording studio, and it's a stunning and fiery thing to hear. From the relentless opener, "Praise His Name," this is an album of redemptive gospel blues that crackles with urgency, passion, and relentless energy. Welch is no traditionalist, and he has stated that he doesn't have a divisive mind when it comes to either the blues or gospel, enjoying both, and whether one sings about mortal love or God, it's all about longing. This is a marvelous album, a revelation, even, with striking electric stomps like "Somebody Touched Me," which sounds a bit like a raw garage band doing a slowed-down gospel version of Chuck Berry, and delicately balanced acoustic numbers like "Mother Loves Her Children" and "The Lord Will Make a Way" showing that Welch has found a way to make the blues and gospel speak together in one voice.

Biography:
Born and raised in the hill country of Mississippi, gospel blues guitarist and singer Leo Welch didn't make his professional recording debut until he was 82 years old, by which time he was pretty much the last in a line of vernacular Mississippi guitarists who included R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, and Mississippi Fred McDowell. Born in Sabougla, Mississippi in 1932, Welch showed an affinity for music early, learning to play guitar, harmonica, and fiddle, and he was soon playing at picnics and parties, working his way up to jook joints and clubs, playing mostly blues standards with a gospel edge, raw and urgent. Otherwise, he kept his day job, working over 30 years on a logging crew in the hill country. Around 1975, when the blues began to wane as a popular music and the gigs began to dry up, Welch switched his sound to gospel, and took his blues riffs and Chuck Berry energy into the churches, developing a raw hybrid style that had the grit and moan of the blues laid under the urgent, passionate energy of call-and-response gospel. An offhand phone call to the Big Legal Mess record label brought him an audition and then a recording contract. Welch took his striking gospel blues into the studio, putting it down straight and with no frills, emerging with a debut album, Sabougla Voices, early in 2014.

Sabougla Voices

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