Blues Wax

To my embarrassment, I had never heard of Andy Cohen before sliding this CD into the player.  I’m glad that deficiency is resolved.  Born in Boston and based in Memphis, Cohen belongs to a relatively small but dedicated group of contemporary blues artists whose reverence for early 20th. Century country and folk blues informs their taste and inspires their playing.  Many of the group are white (Alvin Youngblood being a notable exception), and their styles overlap with the “pure” folk genre.  They demonstrate instrumental virtuosity but eschew technical preening and egotism in favor of devotion to the song. In a pantheon comprised of Paul Geremia, Tom Rush, Paul Rishell, Rory Block, and Jorma Kaukonen among other worthies, Cohen holds his own.

This album sports 15 songs, only one composed by Cohen.  That tune, “Jim Dickinson Stomp,” is an instrumental dedicated to the late musician and producer who died in 2009.  Featuring Cohen on guitar, piano, and dolceola, it is evocative and represents a high point of the album.  Several other songs are Cohen adaptations of works by blues luminaries such as Memphis Minnie, Meade Lux Lewis, and Big Bill Broonzy.  A Woody Guthrie tune makes an appearance, as do numbers by more obscure blues figures like Teddy Darby and Henry Spaulding.

Cohen opens the album with the title tune, and in it displays the dazzling guitar prowess present throughout the album.  The song itself has a pleasant lilting air and understated vocal reminiscent of Mississippi John Hurt.  It is followed by “Railroad Blues,” which Cohen updates to 2010 with the rhymes “mama,” “pajama,” and…”Obama!”  This risible verbal creativity compensates for his strained vocal.

Impressively deft on acoustic guitar, Cohen is no slouch on the ivory 88s, either:  “Honky Tonk Train,” the Lewis composition, and “Shake-a-you-Boogie” are stellar piano instrumental forays.  “Temptation Rag,” a tune from the first decade of the last century, is morphed into a  beautiful classical composition.  Further exploring sub-genres, Cohen delves into Jelly Roll Morton’s ragtime “Grandpa’s Spells,” and gives a fine treatment to Guthrie’s “Mean Talkin’ Blues.”

Not everything on the CD works perfectly.  “My Old Pal,” a Jimmie Rodgers tune, features Kurt Anderson on lead vocal with Cohen in harmony, and the two never quite cohere.  Likewise, “Mopper’s Blues,” an uptempo number, requires a stronger and truer voice than Cohen’s reedy tenor can provide.  Those minor caveats notwithstanding, the album is generally laudatory, and ends in fine form with “Tennessee Blues,” in which Cohen is accompanied vocally and on mandolin by his wife, Larkin Bryant, in a simple and moving plaint.

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