Sonny Terry & His Mouth Harp

AMG Review of Sonny Terry & His Mouth Harp

Richie Unterberger
All Music Guide

This rare December 1953 session (reissued on CD in 1999) was unusual for Terry in that his guitar accompanist was not Brownie McGhee, but Alec Seward, who had previously recorded as Guitar Slim in a duo with "Fat Boy" Hayes" (aka Jelly Belly). It's unusual only in the personnel, however. It sounds like typical Sonny Terry, as he works his way through original material, including standards like "John Henry" and other blues tunes like "In the Evening" (the song that would provide much of the basis for Robert Johnson's "Love in Vain"). You'd have to say that it's usually more interesting to hear Terry with his longtime partner McGhee than it is to hear him with Seward, but it's not terribly different. The trademark vocal and harmonica whoops, and hollers are in gear and running throughout the album, sometimes to exhilarating effect, as on the rapid "The Fox Chase (aka "Hound Dog Holler")." His lyrics get uncommonly specific on "Goodbye Leadbelly," a tribute to the then-recently deceased folk-blues legend, composed by "writer unknown." The recording engineer on the session, incidentally, was a young Jac Holzman, who had just started Elektra Records.