fat possum - C or D?

T-Model Ford is a BAD man. BAAAAAD.

I'm big fan, considering I own over 90% of Fat Possum releases. Virtually nything by Junior Kimbrough ranks amongst the best post-war electric blues albums.

R.L. Burnside's "Too Bad Jim" is another classic. I'm not overly fond of the majority of his albums since that one.

I'm partial to Cedell Davis' atonal, wonky slide playing (using a knife!) and the Elmo Williams with Hezekiah Early is some of the best jukejoint skronk you'll ever hear.

Paul "Wine" Jones is pretty damn good too. Rocks the Wah-Wah and creates quite the squall.

The Dave Thompson record is pretty good, too, if you like nasty, stinging Chicago-style blues.

I think Judah Baur's band 20 Miles is really underrated....also, what was that Drum n Fife group Fat Possum put out???

Space blues!

For me the closest reference points for this music is not rock at all, it's African music - specifically stuff from Mali (Ali Farka Toure, etc.) and Ethiopia. Oddly, counter to Matt's point (which I nonetheless think is largely accurate), fat Possum has been a bit of a bonding point between me and one of my in-laws who is a TOTAL hardcore, relatively "purist" blues/folk afficionado (he likes Ali Farka Toure too).

you mean, they would probably like blues rock like the white stripes et al, but hate actual blues?

The average blues fan in 2005 maybe dabbles in some modern West-Side purveyors (Magic Slim, Eddy Clearwater), but more than likely gets down to Ronnie Earl and Duke Robillard.

Not that there's anything wrong with any of those artists per se, but the average Fat Possum artist is a great deal more rural and tonally "rough".

From my experiences, a lot of blues fans are elitist pricks. The 40-somethings who buy Black Top releases and look down their nose at you when you attempt to chat them up about the genre. This is from years of working in record stores, playing in blues clubs and jams, etc.

The above don't listen to Fat Possum records.

Two ex-Compulsive Gamblers in the backing band, as well.

well, i feel a bit guilty for admiting it but yes, that is exactly what i meant shakey. im not trying to be contentious or agitate, but a lot of people do seem to hold that view of authenticity over anything else. they seem to like the idea of what it represents more than how it actually sounds. and you are OTM about mali music being a close ref point. thats always been evident to me.

i think most f.p. fans (if any "f.p. fans" truly exist outside of matthew whathisname who runs the show) will have encountered the "you only like it cos it's REAL man" complaint so many times as to be pretty self-conscious about it. in others bluey i think you might be conjuring up a bit of a straw man.

To me, Fat Possum was just a giant fuck you to slap bass and glossy, reverbed production. It was exciting, in the same way Sun/Chess/Trumpet/Jewel records from the 50s and 60s were exciting.
Dirty, ominous, and dangerous.

I see where Bluey is coming from. I just think that from the vantage point of someone who grew up in a household where virtually all you heard was blues, Fat Possum was a giant breath of fresh air.

during the show RL kept saying the joke, "Waitress, get me another beer, this one has a hole in it!" to much applause....

BLUES HAMMER

xpost: nephew

so hearing Fat Possum (and some other underground blues labels) was definitely an eye-opener. yeah, most of my friends from high school who were big into the blues are probably still into Stevie Ray Vaughn and Duke Robillaird and Keb Mo, and I totally understand the distaste for that style. And I agree with it!

Those 70s Son Seals and Fenton Robinson LPs are so raw! Live and Burning is probably my favorite live album of all time.

Luther Allison went through this weird "soul" period in the mid-70s that was pretty weak, which springs immediately to mind. He found the plot again a little bit in the mid-'90s, it's a shame he passed away too early. I saw a show of his a few months before and it was definitely RAW

Just saw the You See Me Laughing documentary and am inspired to drop a C note on some Fat Possum stuff. I already have a lot - almost every Junior Kimbrough album, RL's Too Bad Jim and Ass Pocket of Whiskey, the Elmo and Hezikiah album, Robert Belfour, etc. I don't own any T Model Ford, Cedell Davis, Asie Peyton, etc. I was gonna start a S&D thread but I know starting new threads when you can just revive an old one is frowned upon, so...help me out! What's essential?

S: To Model Ford's "I'm Insane"

also Pee Wee Get My Gun and She Ain't None of Your'N

Junior K sill fucking epic

well, most things don't work out!
-- I'd still rather be in Tokyo (nordicskilla)

I remember having some conversation where a dude was like, "Fat Possum is some intentionally gritty, tryin to force-fit the rawness of whatever those white dudes runnin shit think the blues is/should be" (or something) and I'm all "no way, most of those guys are just some old poor folks w/ cheap guitars and amps cuz that's what they can afford, and for a long time Fat Possum barely had enough money to record that shit and usually had to wait to put it out cuz they couldn't actually finance it--of course it sounds raw and gritty", and he was all "my bad". I forget where, on the internet someplace most likely...

I don't think we got into the RL Burnside albums with house beats and whatever.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/27/documenting-the-blues-in-the-mississippi-delta/?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=mini-moth®ion=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below&_r=0

Saw a FP t-shirt in the wild today
“Born to Party /
Forced to Work”
I like to switch the nouns around