Evoking A Time And A Place

This is a rather splendid album, one of those that is much better on this revisit than I remember it being when I last took it from the shelf some time ago. It is by English guitarist Martin Simpson and is called Righteousness and Humidity. Simpson has a varied career, flitting from English traditional folk to his own singer-songwriter style, to collaborations with African and Arab musicians and back to the blues. This album was recorded in Louisiana and is in the main from the bluesier side of his repertoire, while retaining an idividual edge and steering away from cliche. The flavour of the state in which it was recorded permeates the entire disk, not just New Orleans ( the track Easy Money is a reworking of Didn't He Ramble ) or Mississippi delta blues ( Rollin' and Tumblin' gets an outing ) There are other old American tunes like John Hardy and the Coo Coo Bird ( more commonly called the Cuckoo ) and some very evocative instrumentals with fine banjo and mandolin picking as well as virtuoso guitar. Simpson's originals for the disk tap into the common theme of crime, punishment, religion and loss. even the couple of tracks recorded back at his home in Robin Hood's Bay on the north Yorkshire coast have that deep south feel and it was a neat touch not to edit out the natural intervention of a spectacular New Orleans thunderstorm, even if post Katrina ( this album pre-dates the disaster ) it sounds more melacholy.