Hey, now! We're back! No excuses. Let's just start postin'!
Got a special treat for y'all today. A mighty artist recently exhumed by the essential Mississippi Records.
To be fair, we know nothing about Boyd Rivers, other than the info given to us via the liner notes. So, pardon us, but we're gonna briefly quote:
"Boyd Rivers was born on December 25th, 1934, in Madison County, Mississippi. He was brought up in the Church by his Mother and was influenced by regional musicians such as Clyde Maxwell and others, as well as his uncle, the Gospel Legend, Reverend Cleophus Robinson.
"Rivers started out on two nails and a wire on wall, and played Blues guitar as early as 13, but changed to Spirituals around the age of 19.
"Axel Kustner and Siegfried Christmann recorded Rivers later in the same year for the L&R Records series "Living Country Blues" and he appears on "Living Country Blues Vol. 11". A chapter was also dedicated to Rivers in Alan Young's book, "Woke Up This Morning", published in 1997 by the University Press of Mississippi. "
It's a gospel-blues record, full of holy sanctified trance'n'testifyin', Rivers' guitar playing the deep mystery, Mississippi raw, rough and elegiac, a transcendent drone born in fire and mile-deep waters, never still but roiling on stranger guided by voices undercurrent.
Rivers' voice has all the yearning and rumble of a prophet, from darkened door to neon-lit houses of ill-repute to the cobwebbed corners of the shining mansion on the hill, when the choir has gone home, and he's left to sweep the ashes of sin shed and glory and grace floating like motes in the sun-dappled beams of light. Like Papa Lightfoot, edged with a growl and fabled into myth, a shrouded prophet, with an eye toward hypnotic, hallelujah geetar glory, a mumbled swaybacked picked and wobbled ecclesiastical sex'n'sin'n' salvation wagon ride.
Anyone interested in the very primal nature of American music should seek this record out. It's a revival meeting hollerin' in a jukejoint!
Boyd Rivers: That Fire Shed In My Bones (mp3)
Boyd Rivers: I Done Died One Time (mp3)
Nothin' to say here....just keep supportin' folks who are keepin' the flame against the darkness of generic crap!
2 comments:
Back in the late 70's, in the Delta area, Boyd Rivers was a locally well known gospel singer and guitarist. He appeared on the first Mississippi Delta Blues Festival in 1979 and I was very impressed. Music was only a side activity for he was first a farmer, runing a land in the Hill County. He has recorded tracks spradcally that appeared scattered in several anthologies and of course his 1979 performances were filmed and then appeared in a Video VHS that I don't think has been reissued on DVD
Glad to see you back on the old interwebs.
"Just keep supportin' folks who are keepin' the flame against the darkness of generic crap"
Amen! I've been hearing this sentiment from a lot corners of the internet these days.
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