Eric Bibb – Booker’s Guitar – Telarc TEL-31756-02, 49:27 ****:
(Eric Bibb – vocals, 6-, 9- and 12-string guitars, baritone guitar, National steel guitar, co-producer; Grant Dermody – harmonica, chromatic harmonica)
On Booker’s Guitar blues artisan Eric Bibb shows he understands the wisdom of keeping one eye on the past and one eye on the future. In other words, he has the awareness that as the best blues musicians move forward in their career, the better ones never forget to also look back.
Bibb’s new release was inspired by a moment of epiphany and illumination while on tour in England. A fan let Bibb play a vintage 1930s Resophonic National steel guitar owned by legendary Booker “Bukka” White. The encounter led to a song and eventually this fifteen-track, fifty-minute collection steeped in fertile Delta blues and traditional country blues.
Booker’s Guitar is comprised mostly of Bibb’s soulful vocals and acoustic guitar with Grant Dermody’s harmonica on select cuts. On the title track opener Bibb performs a talking blues about Booker White’s guitar, reflecting on the story of both White and his six-string instrument. It’s a sharp beginning gambit since it introduces Bibb’s intentions, his intimate songwriting skills and the general themes of spiritual affection, transcendence from life’s travails and the hope for a brighter and better tomorrow that permeates the material.
There are obvious and nebulous influences on nearly every song. While faith suffuses many blues tunes, listeners may be surprised to learn that Deepak Chopra’s writings – rather than the Bible – inspired the half-spoken/half-sung “With My Maker I Am One.” The cut lists extensive personality types (doctor, movie idol, track star, beggar, gangster and more) who all share connections to a higher being. On this and “Flood Water” Dermody underscores Bibb’s guitar with emotive harmonica. The poignant “Flood Water” was sparked by previous tales by Bessie Smith, Charley Patton and John Lee Hooker of the 1926-1927 Mississippi flooding, although Skip James and Mali indigenous music are also hinted at. The bluesy sermon “One Soul to Save” may sound like a new hymn for troubled times but its perception emanates not from a religious text but from James McBride’s novel Song Yet Sung, about the lengths people have been forced to take for freedom.
Other highlights include renditions of traditional tunes that display Bibb’s interpretative ability and collaborative nature. On “Wayfaring Stranger” Bibb – performing on baritone guitar – and Dermody emphatically communicate the storyteller’s sorrow. During a minimalist reading of Blind Willie Johnson’s “Nobody’s Fault but Mine” Bibb dispenses with guitar and taps out the rhythm with handclaps while Dermody contributes suitably trilling harmonica.
Bibb is an articulate erudite artist who echoes his forebears while penning compositions that could – or should – become standards years or decades from now. With Booker’s Guitar he has crafted a likable project that progresses at a comfortable pace that also has depth and layers that rise up or sink in over subsequent listening.
The audio quality is pristine and retains an audible front porch charm due to sympathetic recording and mixing. The down-home ambience is further enhanced by the use of a specially chosen recording venue, the Bainbridge Store, a 19th century general store in Ohio, which provides both historical and palpable distinctiveness.
TrackList:
1. Booker’s Guitar
2. With My Maker I am One
3. Flood Water
4. Walkin’ Blues Again
5. Sunrise Blues
6. Wayfaring Stranger
7. Train from Aberdeen
8. New Home
9. Nobody’s Fault but Mine
10. One Soul to Save
11. Rocking Chair
12. Turning Pages
13. A Good Woman
14. Tell Riley
15. A-Z Blues
— Doug Simpson
