Rating:
Genre:
Blues
Release Date: 08/26/2008
On 1999's
Continental Drifter, king harmonicat
Charlie Musselwhite began stretching the boundaries of his
Delta blues' heart to embrace music that encompassed the emotional and organic range of
blues music without adhering to a strict formula. In that case, it was Cuban
son; on 2002's
One Night in America, it was
roots country and
Americana. In both cases, the
blues were the root and the destination, but by winding in these other sounds,
Musselwhite's
blues heritage became more, not less organic; it was more deeply rooted in the soul of the Americas at large. On
Sanctuary,
Musselwhite's reach extends back to the
blues from the Mississippi Delta, but his pedigree reveals the
blues tradition as the true signifier of all American music, whether that music is grown from the soil itself and projects itself to the ends of the earth, or reflects its image back across the distances to the homeland, or into a mirror. Inside that tradition is the cornerstone, the "sanctuary" for all modern
popular music to claim as its root. Issued on
Peter Gabriel's
Real World label,
Musselwhite has assembled a crack band for this outing: Joined by guitarist
Charlie Sexton (formerly of the
Bob Dylan band), bassist
Jared Michael Nickerson (
Gary Lucas,
Freedy Johnston,
Jeff Buckley) and back from the
One Night in America sessions, and
Michael Jerome on drums (
Jerome also played with
the Five Blind Boys of Alabama who, along with
Ben Harper, guest on the set).
Sanctuary opens with
Harper's
"Homeless Child," and the composer guests on his Weissenborn guitar, ramping it down and laying out the killer
slide blues for
Musselwhite to wrap and moan his lyrics around and into the void of the night sky. With a skeletal chorus provided by
Harper and
Sexton, the tune goes from the porch to the stratosphere with only the six-string razor and the vocalist's funky harmonica to frame its flight.
Harper also guests on
Musselwhite's amazing
swamp autobiography with
the Blind Boys. The song walks the knife's edge of the sacred and profane; it's a
hymn of both acceptance and repentance. There is a wonderful tension here, between the darkness of the narrative and the exuberance of the backing vocals and the shuffling drum kit. The atmospheric edges in
Musselwhite's mix, though, are better-evidenced by the tunes he plays with his own band, whether it be in the nasty, guttural
blues of his own
"My Road Lies in Darkness," or in the spooky, laid-back humidity of
Randy Newman's
"Let's Burn Down the Cornfield." With a cover of
Chris Youlden's
"Train to Nowhere" -- a song made popular by
Youlden's band at the time,
Savoy Brown -- the listener travels through time and space:
Savoy Brown was trying hard to capture the feel and spirit of the Delta in their version, as the music of the region traveled north to Chicago.
Musselwhite, with
the Blind Boys, embrace the feeling and take it right back down the Mississippi River, thereby creating a double. While there are no weak moments on the set, a couple of the other standouts include the band's instrumental
"Shadow People," which evokes the dread, mystery, and sexy darkness inherent in the music's grain; a stunningly edgy version of
Townes Van Zandt's
"Snake Song," and a sweet, low, rumbling, sexy twitch that comes from
Eddie Harris'
"Alicia." Sexton contributes his own magnificent
"The Neighborhood" to this; in the deep, expressive world at the bottom of
Musselwhite's voice it becomes a song that opens into the shadow side of the world we inhabit everyday. The album ends with a harp solo on
"Route 19 (Attala County, MS)"; the player breathing it through the subtle body channels of marrow, bone, and heart cavity, into history, making an offering to the listener as a gift.
Sanctuary sets a standard for authenticity, vision, and inspired excellence. Amen.
~Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
;)
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