Big Banjo

Banjoist Elmer Snowden only led two albums in the LP era, and his OJC CD reissue is his best showcase. Snowden, who is joined by pianist Cliff Jackson, bassist Tommy Bryant, and drummer Jimmy Crawford, is the lead voice throughout the dozen standards, all of which date from the 1920s or '30s. Snowden's banjo style is a lost art, and this is his definitive recording.

While they're only a trio, the Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band deliver a sound that lives up to their name, with thick, bass-heavy, blues-based guitar figures accompanied by muscular but minimal drumming and the metallic percussive scratch of a washboard (making them one of the first rock bands to regularly feature the latter instrument since Black Oak Arkansas).
The group was formed by guitarist and singer Josh "Reverend" Peyton, who was born and raised in Indiana, and first exposed to music through his father's record collection, which was heavy on Neil Young, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Dylan - all artists with their own take on the blues…

Big Joe Williams may have been the most cantankerous human being who ever walked the earth with guitar in hand. At the same time, he was an incredible blues musician: a gifted songwriter, a powerhouse vocalist, and an exceptionally idiosyncratic guitarist. Despite his deserved reputation as a fighter (documented in Michael Bloomfield's bizarre booklet Me and Big Joe), artists who knew him well treated him as a respected elder statesman. Even so, they may not have chosen to play with him, because - as with other older Delta artists - if you played with him you played by his rules.
As protégé David "Honeyboy" Edwards described him, Williams in his early Delta days was a walking musician who played work camps, jukes, store porches, streets, and alleys from New Orleans to Chicago…

They've sold around half a million albums in Canada, mostly during their '90s heyday, but Big Sugar have never quite been given the credit they deserve for skilfully integrating reggae and dub elements into their rock-based sound. On Yard Style, they dial down the volume to concentrate on acoustic yet percussion-heavy reggae, to convincing effect…

Big Joe Williams may have been the most cantankerous human being who ever walked the earth with guitar in hand. At the same time, he was an incredible blues musician: a gifted songwriter, a powerhouse vocalist, and an exceptionally idiosyncratic guitarist. Despite his deserved reputation as a fighter (documented in Michael Bloomfield's bizarre booklet Me and Big Joe), artists who knew him well treated him as a respected elder statesman. Even so, they may not have chosen to play with him, because - as with other older Delta artists - if you played with him you played by his rules.
As protégé David "Honeyboy" Edwards described him, Williams in his early Delta days was a walking musician who played work camps, jukes, store porches, streets, and alleys from New Orleans to Chicago…

While they're only a trio, the Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band deliver a sound that lives up to their name, with thick, bass-heavy, blues-based guitar figures accompanied by muscular but minimal drumming and the metallic percussive scratch of a washboard (making them one of the first rock bands to regularly feature the latter instrument since Black Oak Arkansas).
The group was formed by guitarist and singer Josh "Reverend" Peyton, who was born and raised in Indiana, and first exposed to music through his father's record collection, which was heavy on Neil Young, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Dylan - all artists with their own take on the blues…

This album, the first under the band's name in six and a half years, is a jazz alternative album with a multilingual and hardcore taste that differs greatly from previous albums.