Cedric Burnside & Lightnin' Malcolm,
2 Man Wrecking Crew
(Deltagroove, 2009)


Cedric Burnside is the grandson of Mississippi blues giant R.L. Burnside. When he was 13, he began playing drums in his grandfather's band.

Stev "Lightnin'" Malcolm is a young white guy who fell in love with the blues the day he heard his parents playing a tape of Muddy Waters' Greatest Hits. Taking up the guitar, he began sneaking into juke joints and listening to every blues player he could find. Eventually, he made his way down to Mississippi where he met the Burnsides -- for a while, he lived in R.L. Burnside's house, where he and Cedric would jam together. Later, the two teamed up to form the 2 Man Wrecking Crew, which played all of the juke joints in the Delta country. 2 Man Wrecking Crew is the first CD to result from the teaming.

And it is a beauty.

You wouldn't think that a single guitar and a set of drums would be enough to pull off music this fine, but then you wouldn't think that most guitarists and drummers would be this good, either. These guys can set up a groove that makes you want to give up walking and float and then create a solo out of it that seems natural and downhome, so you have to hear it several times before you realize exactly how much skill is behind it.

Burnside and Malcolm know their stuff. Theirs is deep in the Delta blues. As they sing, they don't just sing about the blues, they live it. It must come from growing up in a home where there were house parties every weekend, with jam sessions out on the porch. Their playing is finely connected; they feed off of each other like two workmen sharing a lunchtime 12-inch sub and their voices go together like gin and tonic.

There's only two things to do with music this good: Buy it and play it.




Rambles.NET
review by
Michael Scott Cain

5 September 2009


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