Bobby Rush - Porcupine Meat '2016

Tracks list

Tracklist

01. I Dont Want Nobody Hanging Around
02. Porcupine Meat
03. Got Me Accused
04. Snake in the Grass
05. Funk O De Funk
06. Me, Myself
07. Catfish Stew
08. Its Your Move
09. Nighttime Gardener
10. I Think Your Dress Is Too Short
11. Standing on Shaky Ground
12. Im Tired (Tangle Eye Mix)


Hes spent half a century touring his funk, soul and bawdy blues around whats
called the chitlin circuit in his home country, and now Bobby Rush has hit his
straps one more time with one of his best albums in years.

Bobby Rush’s debut release for Rounder Records, and one of the best
recordings of the blues legend’s astonishing 60-plus-year career. A
fresh, funky, wild and fun outing from the Louisiana native and Blues Hall Of
Fame inductee, produced by Scott Billington. Includes Billington and Johnette
Downing’s swampy co-written “Snake In The Grass” and deep
bluesy soul testament “Got Me Accused”.

Bobby Rush has been making records for just short of half a century, and if he
hasnt become a household name, hes certainly the king of his own particular
hill. Rushs wild mixture of soul, blues, and funk, along with his vivid and
sometimes raunchy storytelling, has made him the leading star on the modern
chitlin circuit, playing working-class nightspots in primarily African-American
communities in the South and Midwest. Rush is a showman with plenty of swagger,
a tough but effective vocal style, and a gift for putting his own breed of
down-home surrealism to classic blues and R&B tropes. Ever since he was
prominently featured in the PBS documentary series Martin Scorsese Presents: The
Blues -- A Musical Journey in 2003, Rushs visibility among blues fans has been
on the rise, and 2016s Porcupine Meat, his first album for Rounder Records,
sounds like an effort to make Rush a bit more palatable to mainstream blues
fans. Thankfully, producer Scott Billington has given Rushs music a new level of
studio polish without robbing him of his personality or his signature sound, and
if hes paired Rush up with a few guest stars (including Joe Bonamassa and Keb
Mo), hes also put together a studio band that navigates his deeply Southern
sound with a strong but easy groove. On numbers like Nighttime Gardener, Catfish
Stew, and the title cut, Rushs adventures with the opposite sex are as crazy as
ever (especially when he compares a woman to Porcupine Meat - too fat to eat,
too lean to throw away). When Rush takes on more straight-ahead blues material
like Got Me Accused and Im Tired, hes got a stubborn fire that sets him apart
from most folks trading in the 12-bar. And on I Dont Want Nobody Hanging Around
and Funk o de Funk, Rush cuts a dancefloor-filling groove thats especially
impressive coming from a man of 83. Porcupine Meat isnt Bobby Rush at his
strongest or wildest, but as a piece of record-making, its one of his best
albums in ages, and hardly sounds like the work of a man who has been doing this
since the mid-60s - its fresh, funky, and fun. (Mark Deming, AMG)

Related artists