Mississippi Moderne
Landslide
Slide guitar has more of a presence on “Mississippi Moderne” than on Webb Wilder’s other albums — perhaps because Nashville session player Bob Williams, who’s been co-guitarist since 2007 but played on just three songs off 2009’s “More Like Me,” is fully incorporated this time around.
“Moderne” also has a bluesier bent, which seems only natural given its focus on Mississippi, Wilder’s home state. Yet he continues to defy categorization, sounding a bit like Phil Alvin on “Rough and Tumble Guy” and Nick Lowe on “Too Much Sugar for a Nickel” (both being collaborations with John Hadley, of country music publisher Tree International fame), and covering Ray Davies’ “I Gotta Move,” a song he used to play with The Drapes back in Hattiesburg.
“Yard Dog” (originally recorded by Biloxi garage-rock band The One Way Street in 1966) and “Lucy Mae Blues” (a 1953 regional hit for Texas guitarist Frankie Lee Sims) were previously released as a 2013 digital-only single. Other covers are Conway Twitty’s “Lonely Blue Boy,” Otis Rush’s “It Takes Time,” Jimmy Reed’s “I’m Gonna Get My Baby” and Charlie Rich’s “Who Will the Next Fool Be?”
Another noteworthy cut is “Only a Fool,” co-written with Dan Penn (“The Dark End of the Street,” “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man”) and featuring twin-lead electric sitar riffs. Furthermore, former Wilder guitarists Joe V. McMahan and George Bradfute return to help out with the aforementioned “Yard Dog” and “I’m Gonna Get My Baby,” respectively.
Wilder’s eighth studio record was recorded at Nashville’s Studio 19, originally Scotty Moore’s Music City Recorders, just before it was demolished. Maybe a sense of inevitability spurred the musicians to new heights, but Wilder, Williams, longtime bassist Tom Comet and original drummer Jimmy Lester (also a founding member of Los Straitjackets) play like nobody’s business.
Tracks
1. Stones In My Pathway (intro)
2. Rough And Tumble Guy
3. If It Ain’t Broke (Don’t Fix It)
4. Only A Fool
5. I Gotta Move
6. Too Much Sugar For A Nickel
7. Lonely Blue Boy
8. Yard Dog
9. I’m Not Just Anybody’s Fool
10. It Takes Time
11. Lucy Mae Blues
12. Who Will The Next Fool Be
13. I’m Gonna Get My Baby
14. Stones In My Pathway
Total time: 46:05
External links
artist’s website
amazon.com
iTunes Store
