Blues: Slick Ballinger's Mississippi Soul

Let’s start at the ending, a very good place to start.

Slick Ballinger’s album, Mississippi Soul, ends with a hidden track, “Talkin’ About Jesus,” where this young blues guitar slinger lays bare his faith and its connection to the blues. Before hopping into the jump-blues Gospel of the tune, Ballinger says over the vamp,

“You know the blues ain’t nothin’ but the trials and tribulations of what you’re going through in life. See the old folk told me that every man down here on this earth is going to have the blues at one time or another, and that is the truth. They told me that long time ago back when the people was down in the cotton fields and tobacco fields and things, they said the blues was nothing but a gift from God down on a oppressed people. They said when He reached down and He gave the people the ability to sing them blues, He reached down and gave them the ability to moan. But right now people, we just got to give you the answer to the blues. Ain’t but one answer, and it goes something like this. . . .”

I’ve long held that the Psalms in the Bible ain’t nothing but the blues written a long time ago in Hebrew. Even Moses had those Delta blues back in Egypt. What Ballinger does on this hidden track is bring that all together, showing how the blues are God’s way of helping us express the anguish in our souls but also how Jesus is the answer to the blues.

That’s a good place to start when talking about Mississippi Soul, because much of the rest of the album finds Ballinger singing the blues—and what the blues are usually about: women/sex (Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Sugar Mama Blues”) and bars (“Juke House Blues”). As Ballinger lays down some incredible Mississippi blues, laying bare those honest moans from real life, it could be hard for some in the Christian community to see how the Gospel answers these kinds of blues.

Yet, the blues always have that self-conscious notion that while this woman may be beautiful or this juke joint may be jumping, that there’s still something missing. These things don’t quite fill us up, which is when we realize they’re not the real answer to the blues.

Ballinger jams on his acoustic guitar in such a way as to raise up decades of country blues that have been planted and buried in the soil. Leon Baker on drums keeps the jump in the jump blues, and Blind Mississippi Morris wails, moans, and yells the blues through his harmonica which gets that distorted horn sound. The trio makes the whole building hip-dip, hip-shake, and hip-sway on the country blues vamps of “Mississippi Soul” and “Let’s Get Down.”

And once that whole building is shaking, it’s a song like “Brotherhood Blues” that starts to lead that shaking crowd to the truth. Even as all people of all races are one in Christ, so Ballinger’s dirt main street strut blues gets everyone to look around and see that they all have the same color souls—country souls looking for the Gospel.

Thank you to Slick Ballinger and Oh Boy Records for the review copy.