Home Read Classic Album Review: Honeyboy Edwards | Mississippi Delta Bluesman

Classic Album Review: Honeyboy Edwards | Mississippi Delta Bluesman

A long-lost ’70s acoustic album from the blues legend makes a welcome return.

This album came out back in 2001. Here’s what I said about it then (with some minor editing):

 


How pure is David (Honeyboy) Edwards’ blues pedigree? Well, put it this way — he played with Charley Patton AND Robert Johnson, and was even with Johnson the night he was fatally poisoned. Then Edwards moved to Chicago and took up with Big Walter, Little Walter and Jimmy Rogers. In other words, he’s the real thing.

So is this masterful CD, a reissue of a long-unavailable acoustic LP from the ’70s. The set list mixes obscure Delta folk-blues (Patton’s Pony Blues, Tommy Johnson’s Big Fat Mama, Robert Petway’s Catfish Blues), familiar favourites (Sweet Home Chicago, Dust My Broom) and Edwards’ own compositions (Blues Worry Me All the Time, I Feel So Good Today), rendered with Honeyboy’s distinctive, string-bending guitar lines and gruff, soulful vocals. Still going at age 85, Edwards is one of the last living links to the original bluesmen. Like countless others, I’d love to hear a new album — but this one will do just fine for now.

https://youtu.be/1fKMQlYN_TQ

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