Moby Has A Lot To Answer For

I've posted several times about disks that have been much better than I remembered them to be on revisiting them for this exercise. Sadly, here is an occasion where the opposite is the case. It is a contemporary blues album by Booboo Davis called Drew, Mississippi. It's not a dreadful album by any means but on listening again I find that it is a bit of a case of style triumphing over substance. As the sleeve note says, Booboo is the real deal in that he was born and raised in the delta heartland of the blues and retains the authenticity of the past masters from Robert Johnson and Charley Patton on through to Howlin' Wolf and John Lee Hooker. The only problem is that he isn't as good and a fairly slight talent is surrounded on most tracks by a boogieing bar band and sub Moby recording gimmicks of the sort that are becoming a bit of a cliche in southern blues albums since the modest success enjoyed by R L Burnside. That all makes it sound like a bad album, which it isn't and I'll no doubt still play it occasionally when in the mood for a blues session. But it isn't essential and I think I was seduced into buying it on the basis of hearing one track on the radio, always a risky business.