Corey Harris, Alvin Youngblood Hart & Guy Davis

Fight On! True Blues Vol. 2

Yellow Dog Records

Refreshing is the first thought that sprang to mind listening to the blues that Corey Harris, Alvin Youngblood Hart, and Guy Davis cut for Fight On! True Blues Vol. 2. The follow-up to their acclaimed 2013 debut beams with admiration and respect. Although the title and cover art suggest protest amid angst, those feelings are sung about with the class and restraint of the early blues giants. The songs are a mix of old standbys and newly written, and they all conjure the spirits of Black folks of the past through vivid scene-setting, persuasive, tuneful voices, and splendid acoustic guitar playing. The “fight” in the title really refers to the steadfast battle these true bluesmen (and others) engage in happily to preserve a grand American art form. No frills, no modernization, just traditional acoustic delta blues music. That essence, and the talent these gentlemen display, makes this album not only refreshing, but highly entertaining and important.

Hart, Harris, and Davis each contribute three performances. Corey Harris opens the album with a rendition of “We are Almost Down to the Shore (Fight On),” a standard that remains open-ended in interpretation, which is one of the many charming aspects of true blues music. He comes off full of determination, but tempered by grace. Alvin Youngblood Hart takes Charley Patton’s eternal “Screamin’ and Hollerin’ the Blues” and makes it reverberate in a voice full of personality, the self-pity emerging with a touch of humor. Guy Davis chimes in with his own “See Me When You Can,” the tone there gloomy; the gentle but urgent plea of a lonely soul.

These men can play, too. Harris pulls hard at his strings to illustrate the offensive stuff assaulting him as he shouts out his own “What’s that I Smell.” Hart plays a tangle of notes in his own “If the Blues was Money,” resembling two players debating an eternal blues conundrum through music. In Davis’ “Deep Sea Diver,” which is an extension of Brownie McGhee’s “Deep Sea Diver” from 1960 in theme and melody if not exactly in lyrics, Davis lets his fingers follow his voice, both nonchalant despite the sauciness of the thoughts.

“I Belong to the Band,” by Rev. Gary Davis, played by Harris, exemplifies the pure joy of being a bluesman. But Davis ends the album with “Everything I Got is Done in Pawn.” Written with Elizabeth Cotten, the song laments the state of a man with some real bad stuff going on.

The songs were recorded separately in Virginia, Mississippi, and New York, but Fight On! True Blues Vol. 2 presents an experience that sounds as if these three bluesmen sat in a circle and played for one another, and us. Put this album on for guests unfamiliar with traditional blues music. I guarantee somebody will ask, “Who’s this?” No greater compliment to the music and the musicians that play it and keep it alive.

Tom Clarke for MAS

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