Search - Mississippi Sheiks :: Mississippi Sheiks: The Essential

Phenomenal!

Megan Romer | Ithaca, NY | 12/18/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Mississippi Sheiks are the missing link, so to speak, between what we now know as Delta Blues and traditional rural black stringband music. Their songs have been recorded by everyone from the Camp Creek Boys to Bob Wills to the Grateful Dead (Stop and Listen Blues is the predecessor to Smokestack Lightnin').



Although our romantic notions of early Delta blues want to make Robert Johnson the hero of this time period in American music, Johnson was actually quite unpopular in his time. The Sheiks were the reigning heroes and should be remembered as such.



Fiddle players should listen carefully to this record, as Lonnie Chatmon uses several odd cross-tunings that aren't common in any fiddle repertoire. Guitar players should simply sit in awe at Bo Chatmon's (aka Bo Carter's) guitar playing on the selected tracks where he sits in, and marvel at the sparse delicacy of Walter Vinson's guitar playing.



The Mississippi Sheiks were truly their own chapter in American music history, there was no other band quite like them nor will there ever be. Pick up this extensive collection, you'll be so glad you did."