From the Incomplete Notes File:The Unfinished Bill Sheffield Journal on a Shelf Review

This unfinished review was written back in May. Even back then, the review was long overdue. Rather than shelving my Bill Sheffield review until I could muster the words to finish, I decided to just share what I found scribbled in my steno pad (journal).

I guess I've been holding onto Bill Sheffield's Journal on a Shelf fir a time such as this: a slightly muggy, no-sense-in-drying-out-cause-another-storm's-coming morning in St. Louis. Returning to Concordia Seminary for the Day of Homiletical Reflection gave me the opportunity to walk my old neighborhoods--University City and Clayton; Washington University, Fontbonne University, and the Seminary. Sheffield's acoustic blues of humidity made the perfect soundtrack for my wanderings of nostalgia and melancholia.

The Seminary always felt like a conflagration of two worlds. The haunting, timeless resonance of the choral chants filling the chapel with a reflection of our apostolic faith. The Mississippi River Valley's thick, mossy, humidity of blues, crossroads, and archway to discovery. Perhaps that's why Sheffield's songs rang true for my morning walk--his blues contemplates the conjunction, convergence, and conflict of the old faith and the blues. . .such as in telling off the preacher in "Black Bottom" and the more universal approach to life in "I Don't Hate Nobody" as opposed to the traditional conservative categorizing.

Thanks to Bill Sheffield and American Roots Records for the review CD.