Blues: Charlie Musselwhite's Delta Hardware

He’s the original North Mississippi Allstar. Forty years of playing the blues have proven that Charlie Musselwhite deserves to be on the starting lineup of every blues all-star team. While the North Mississippi Allstars jump and shout, it’s Musselwhite who led them out to the back porch. As he honks and squawks on “One of These Mornings,” backed by trashcan junkyard guitar, it’s clear that the North Mississippi Allstars—and so many others—have simply followed Musselwhite to that rusted out car sound.

Delta Hardware is a stronger album when Musselwhite jumps that rocking blues, moving with an abandon that must have inspired R.L. Burnside. Musselwhite’s harmonica talks with the sound effects and melody and harmony and rawness of Sonny Terry. (It’s now clear to me what Carlos del Junco is shooting for with his playing.

However, even on the slower tracks or when the music comes down to just a vamp (like the drum and bass loop of “Clarksdale Boogie”), that’s when Musselwhite can haunt you with his chanted words—a man in the shadows of an abandoned farm house, chanting about the blues of the city that you didn’t realize you’d find in those country blues, but even the rural communities have their juke joint fights, alcohol-fueled violence, and today’s crystal meth labs.

“Black Water” is one of the slow tracks, meandering in that shadow world, although with each stanza beginning with the lyric “Old black water,” it seems as if the song is the dark undercurrent of the Doobie Brothers’ “Black Water.”

The opening jump rocker “Church is Out” grapples with the contradictory life present in the Mississippi Delta Bible Belt (and everywhere)—churchgoing on Sunday doesn’t necessarily mean the rest of the week is like what Jesus would do. That honest confession shakes and grooves this song while wryly being aware of the self-contradiction.

Thank you to Charlie Musselwhite and Real World Records for the review copy.