Michael Hurley's Ancestral Swamp

I put up one of the covers from this 20th album by folk-blues master Michael Hurley a couple of Sundays ago. (http://mog.com/jenny/blog_post/119508) Here's the review, which ran last Friday in PopMatters.Michael HurleyThe Ancestral Swamp(Gnomonsong)US release date: 18 September 2007UK release date: 17 September 2007by Jennifer KellyMP3 of "Knockando"http://www.gnomonsong.com/mp3s/Michael_Hurley_Knockando.mp3 Twilight folk and blues from a masterThe album begins casually, a clamped down strum answered by a vertiginously bent blues note, the instrumental accompaniment moving in stops and starts as if its ideas are just occurring to Michael Hurley. When he sings, this 40-year veteran of folk and blues has a worn-in grace, his voice warm and unforced and seemingly right in your ear. “Had a glass of knockando,” he breathes, and you can almost smell the single malt. He is right there, telling you a story, in no particular hurry. Hurley can afford to be laid back. This is, after all, his 20th album in a career that has spanned five decades. He started all the way back in 1965, with First Songs, a record made on the same reel-to-reel that documented Leadbelly, and released on the Smithsonian Folkways label. Robert Christgau called Have Moicy, his 1976 collaboration with the Holy Modal Rounders’ Pete Stampfel, “the greatest folk album of the rock era”. He has been covered by everyone from the Violent Femmes to Cat Power. He still plays shows, hitching up with new psych folkers like Espers, the Black Swans and Vetiver, and he still writes and plays songs about elemental things: liquor, love, death and gambling. With Ancestral Swamp, Hurley gathers 11 songs, many longtime staples of his live show. There are covers—Blind Willie McTell’s “Dying Crapshooter Blues”, Lightning Hopkins “Lonesome Graveyard” and the traditional cowboy song “Streets of Laredo”—as well as his own skewed originals. He plays most of the instruments, though Holy Modal Rounder Dave Reisch and Portland roots musician Lewi Longmire make appearances, and Tara Jane O’Neill sings harmonies and plays guitar on one song. More here: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/music/reviews/50012/michael-hurley-the-ancestral-swamp/