Adelaide Fringe Review: A History of Mississippi and Georgia Blues
Posted on: Mon 28 Feb 2022
‘Shine on sweet harvest moon. Shine on’
Ahh, The Blues…. it’s all about the feelings, with a generous splash of the stories behind the music.
And we glean a marvellous taste, with award-winning blues guitarist Cal Williams Jnr, Kory Horwood on double-bass and Mary Trèês on percussion, in A History of Mississippi and Georgia Blues.
It all happens under the star-spangled stage sky at The Wheaty Tin Shed. A musical processional entry, and then suddenly we are swept away, floating downstream to the strains of ‘Don’t let it worry up your mind’
Encouraged to hum and sing along – the full-house audience appreciates the gesture – but we’re no-way as good, and wisely leave it to the trio. We are in good hands going down the Mississippi!
Cal Williams Jnr gives a rapid-fire history entwined throughout the music – how your signature sound could pin-point where you lived. The myth about whether Robert Johnson really did sell his soul to the devil at The Crossroads, or (much more pragmatically) spent 6 months out of town refining his art.
Even stories about the instruments, with a guitar made out of a chicken shed door (a Don Morrison special) and cigar boxes – after all, the history of Mississippi and Georgia blues is emmeshed with ‘penitence, farms and prisons‘ – and people learnt to make do, and the sounds echo in their music. As the songs say….’May the Lord have mercy on my wicked soul’.
Legend, myth, and music – we catch it all in A History of Mississippi and Georgia Blues with the Cal Williams Jr Blues Trio.
Review: Christina Hagger
Image: Photo by Luke Michael on Unsplash
