 FRUTELAND
JACKSON - Tell Me What You Say
Electro-Fi 3401
by Eric Steiner
Fruteland Jackson’s
latest release on Toronto’s Electro-Fi label,
Tell Me What You Say, was one of my favorite releases
of 2007. There have been quite a number of recent
blues CDs that have set the bar high for any new
traditional or acoustic blues CD, and I’m
pleased to add Fruteland’s work to my CD shelf
alongside Blues Music Award-winners Bobby Rush and
Paul Oscher’s Down in the Delta. Rush’s
Raw is Mississippi blues stripped down to its bare
essentials, as is Oscher’s Down in the Delta.
Unlike those two blues giants,
however, Fruteland hasn’t picked up the hardware
as a performer. He was nominated in two categories
this year: Best Acoustic Artist and Best Acoustic
Album. However, the Blues Foundation recognized
Fruteland’s work in blues education with a
Keeping the Blues Alive award in 1997, and he also
received an Ethnic Heritage Award from the Illinois
Arts Council that same year. Tell Me What You Say
includes Fruteland’s gift as a storyteller
as he introduces “A Gambler’s View”
and “My Grandfather’s Blues (He Came
Up the Hard Way).” Fruteland’s web site
includes Blues in the Schools curricula, song snippets,
and additional background from this Chicago-area
bluesman based in Northern Indiana. This year, Fruteland’s
been a regular at Buddy Guy’s Legends, international
blues festivals, and Junior’s Sports Bar,
and I look forward to learning more about his work
with Blues in the Schools programs at www.fruteland.com.
My favorites on Tell Me What
You Say include “It’s All Good,”
“A Gambler’s View,” and “Blues
Over Baghdad.” Corky Siegel considers this
song a contemporary “Strange Fruit,”
and when I hear Kevin Fox’ cello inform each
verse with melancholy, this comparison is right-on.
There are quite a few upbeat numbers, too, on Tell
Me What You Say, including a jaunty “You Are
My Sunshine” and “It’s All Good.”
I consider Tell Me What You Say required listening
for fans of authentic acoustic blues.
Eric Steiner is
President of the Washington Blues Society (www.wablues.org)
and a Blues Supporter member of The Blues Foundation
(www.blues.org).
|
