It's A Chicken, Boy

Another album of contemporary blues from the southern USA by Guy Davis entitled Skunkmello. Nothing to do with drugs, Skunkmello refers to a legendary chicken thief from around 1900 and the fact that he was eventually hanged for his misdeeds somehow looses its' tragic nature when aligned with the delightfully silly track Skunkmello's Dance of the Chickens, with fiercely plucked banjo giving the best chicken impersonation this side of Rameau. The album is in the main free of any electronic gimmickry while retaining fine modern production values. Musically, the album alternates between classy blues band settings with the help of musicians such as guitarist John Platania and keyboard player Mark Naftalin and country blues stylings that feature Davis alone or with sparse acoustic rhythm section. The band songs are fine but the albums distinction revolves more around the older country blues type tracks which develop something of a theme around such diverse topics as soul food and the tyranny of slavery days. Plenty of double entendres too. Davis has a warm if not outstanding voice and his banjo picking and blues harmonica playing is exemplary. The bonus track, Uncle Tom Is Dead, features a conversation between Davis and a cynical youth who dismisses blues as a dead old man's music. While the track is reasonably light hearted, let's hope at least a few black kids might realise the cultural legacy that it in fact holds.