–Dennis Cook, JamBase.com
Release Date: 23 January 2007
Genre: Jam Band/Mississippi Delta Blues/Rock/Alternative Rock
Publisher: (C) 2007 Fog City Records
Label: Fog City Records
Time: 54m 21s
Review Date:08-October-2008
Format: CD
JivePK™: Currently not a Jivewired member
Click image to purchase from Amazon
Track Listing:
01. Do Your Thing 3:37
02. Honeybee 4:58
03. Early In The Morning 5:52
04. I Had The Dream 2:27
05. Little Moses 7:44
06. Coffee 3:09
07. I'm Getting Over It 2:54
08. Girls In Bossier City 6:10
09. Sugarland 6:31
10. True Religion 4:42
11. Hallelujah I'm A Dreamer 4:17
Review:
"a magically crafted grimoire of voodoo space blues" (New Orleans Gambit)
I had to use that quote. I loved it. Grimoire is my new favorite word.
It's not often I start a review, immediately stop, pour myself a rock full of my favorite bourbon, and then continue said review - especially when I start said review at 5:28 am. But then if you had heard the song "Sugarland" by Papa Mali, you'd likely join me. Ernest Hemingway I am not. Yet I could not continue without my liquid accompaniment.
First things first - "Do Your Thing" is a release that deftly deviates between roots rock, delta blues and voodoo soul. This is a compelling effort with a rough ache that seeks and believes in redemption. Yet in a world that may be merely nothing more than sexual innuendo and steamy eroticism, facing global recession that leaves us all just hurling towards an inevitable apocalypse, we have two choices........drop to a knee and beg for salvation or get up to that there crossroads and sell our souls to the devil. After listening to this disc I am left wondering which is exactly the correct choice.
This effort is remarkable in that it moves seamlessly through it's varied styles. "Honey Bee" is a wonderful jazz piece that would fit perfectly in a movie like "Sleepless In Seattle". The sultry "Girls In Bossier City" is a steamy trip into the bowels of New Orleans, pure sex and spectacle. "Sugarland" is a toe-to-toe stare down with the hounds of Hell, wonderfully dark, brooding and perilously unregenerate. "Do Your Thing" adds an incredible echo to the vocals that creates a dreamy, ethereal effect and really stands out.
I first connected with Papa Mali after hearing the song "Girls In Bossier City", a gritty song with simmering guitar work. But everything on this release is a soul-stirring, dark and mysterious glimpse of New Orleans roots music, rife with soulful slide guitars and visceral vocals. Mali invites the city's most celebrated musical ambassadors including Henry Butler, Kirk Joseph and Monk Boudreaux to participate, and for good measure.
Said Mali, "We played together live right there in the room, all of us sitting together, and of all the things that I've been involved in musically it is perhaps my proudest moment. Of all the things I've recorded that may be the highlight right there."
A highlight indeed. If you've never experienced delta blues with a touch of an upbeat jazz tempo, or if your experience is limited to Dr. John, take heed. This is Robert Johnson with modern production; Pinetop Perkins with a seedy edge; in short, an echo-drenched, sonic joy ride which transforms contemporary jazz into a heavenly combination of roots, blues and voodoo electronica.
~ Michael Canter Jivewired.com
About Papa Mali:
While still in grade school, he was conning his cousin to take him into the French Quarter so he could buy every element of Brian Jones's outfit from the front cover of The Rolling Stones High Tides & Green Grass.
He had taken up the guitar at age four, and was learning to play rock and blues by the time he was eleven. At the age of twelve he witnessed The Meters performing on the back of a flatbed truck in New Orleans on Mardi Gras Day. This would have a lasting impact on the young musician. The great blues guitarist John Campbell took him under his wing when Welbourne was 14, and around that time he started taking the Blues seriously. By the time he was 17, he had left home and was hitch hiking around the south, playing guitar on the streets for passing change, playing in juke joints, forming short-lived bands or backing up blues and soul singers.
A trip to Jamaica in 1977 exposed him to reggae music, and a few years later he teamed up with Michael E. Johnson and formed The Killer Bees in 1980. They continued to play for many years, eventually becoming one of the first American bands to perform at Reggae Sunsplash in Montego Bay, Jamaica in 1988. Earlier, while on tour with Burning Spear aka Winston Rodney and his band, he received the nickname, Papa Mali from the reggae pioneers. By the time the Killer Bees disbanded, Papa Mali was ready to step out on his own and re-embrace his musical heritage, the swampy funk and bluesy soul of Louisiana and the Mississippi Delta.
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