![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/ms_sounds.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The blues featured guitar-and-drum duos long before that lean and mean lineup became a popular approach in other musical idioms. So there\u2019s a long and proud tradition for what Memphissippi does. Yet the duo \u2013 Damion Pearson on vocals, guitar and harmonica, joined by drummer Cam Kimbrough (who also plays guitar and sings) \u2013 has a character that places one foot firmly in the past, the other proudly pointed toward the future.<\/p>\n
They make a joyous racket when they want to. Welcome to the Land<\/i> (out September 20 on Little Village) opens with the heavy, hypnotic \u201cWho\u2019s Gonna Ride.\u201d Built around a deceptively simple one-chord riff, the song surges forward relentlessly with the intensity of a locomotive. The song starts off powerfully, and it builds a head of steam from there. Vocals, stabbing lead guitar and wildly blowing harmonica all gain in strength as the tune barrels ahead. And a fadeout ending has rarely been as appropriate as it is here, with the song fading away like a train disappearing on the horizon.<\/p>\n
\u201cGroove With Me\u201d is possessed with all the swagger of prime-era Muddy Waters. Kimbrough\u2019s drum work is confined to a stomping, insistent bass thump, a bit of hi-hat and an occasional cymbal crash. But as the duo demonstrates throughout this record, he innately understands the needs of each song. And this cut doesn\u2019t need more. The squealing, squalling guitar lines take center stage.<\/p>\n
Other than a few extemporaneous shouts, \u201cI\u2019m Mad\u201d is an instrumental. The duo gets everything you need to know about their mood across without having to sing about it. And in the song\u2019s second half, they take flight, running through chord progressions that bring the album close \u2013 but not too<\/i> close \u2013 to rock and roll.<\/p>\n
And even though the blues is the preferred style of Memphissippi Sounds, the duo\u2019s skill set clearly extends far beyond its confines. \u201cYou Got the Juice\u201d is slinky, down-and-dirty soul. The tune presents the duo at its loosest, suggesting that the number might have been an off-the-cuff recording. But if this is what they come up with when musically free-associating, a live set might be even more thrilling than this set of nine studio cuts.<\/p>\n
The breathtakingly spare instrumentation on cuts like \u201cLook Out for the Wolf\u201d means that the vocals, playing and arrangement all have to be top-notch; there would be nowhere to hide for weak elements. But that\u2019s of no concern to this pair; they\u2019re assured and in total command of all those components.<\/p>\n
It takes a lot of moxie for a blues artist to present an original song called \u201cCrossroads.\u201d But This duo has the goods, and so while Memphissippi Sounds\u2019s new tune might not achieve the popularity of the Robert Johnson standard, the easygoing, loping one-chord piece is a worthy addition to the blues canon. Pearson\u2019s harmonica work is impressive throughout the record, but on this cut he wails in an extra-special fashion, delivering emotional intensity with every blow.<\/p>\n
Inside the disc\u2019s gatefold sleeve, a brief note provides something of a Memphissippi Sounds mission statement. It characterizes the project as \u201ca voice for the blues people, the sons of share croppers; a voice for the marginalized; an escape from the main stream; a swim in muddy waters; a testimony to time, grit & grind; a healing sound; a mantra; a shot in the dark; a rude awakening; a sign of the times; a SOUND.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s all true, but Welcome to the Land<\/i> is also a simply great listen. Memphissippi Sounds proves that in the right hands, much of value can be done with just a few tools. Everything about Welcome to the Land<\/i> suggests that Pearson and Kimbrough have talent and creativity to burn; they\u2019re ones to watch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The blues featured guitar-and-drum duos long before that lean and mean lineup became a popular approach in other musical idioms. So there\u2019s a long and proud tradition for what Memphissippi […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22146,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,49,65],"tags":[4728],"class_list":["post-22145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-new-release","category-review","tag-memphissippi-sounds","cat-9-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22147,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22145\/revisions\/22147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}