Leo Bud Welch - I Don't Prefer No Blues

82-year-old Mississippi bluesman's raucous second album for Big Legal Mess

Features guests Jimbo Mathus and Sharde Thomas

Produced by Bruce Watson; includes album download

At age 82, bluesman Leo "Bud" Welch rocks on stage like a teenager — dancing and spinning as he beats out jagged chords and grimy solos on his pink, sparkle-covered guitar. That raw youthful energy and Welch's old-school juke-joint jones blend full-throttle in the 10 songs on I Don't Prefer No Blues, his second release for Fat Possum Records' subsidiary Big Legal Mess.

The album is a garage-blues manifesto that weds waves of prickly six-string distortion and gutbucket drums with Welch's smoke-and-ash voice and mud-crusted guitar - and lives up to Fat Possum's history of producing edgy but deeply rooted recordings by artists like Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside. I Don't Prefer No Blues is the follow-up to last year's Sabougla Voices, an all-gospel disc that marked Welch's debut as both a recording artist and a songwriter. That album was heralded as a fresh breath of rust-bearing air — a throwback to an era of rural music free from outside influences and a reminder that blues-fueled primitivism is still personified by a handful of living Southern artists.

I Don't Prefer No Blues is what the preacher at Welch's church said when he found out Welch was making a blues album. "Up until Sabougla Voices came out, I had only played spirituals in the church and in tents for about 50 years," Welch explains.

But these days Welch does prefer blues. Playing blues on stage since Sabougla Voices' release has proven transformative for the octogenarian resident of Bruce, Mississippi. He's toured parts of the U.S. and Europe, and played for audiences of all ages at international festivals and such prestigious events as the Americana Music Association Festival and Conference in Nashville.

 

 

Side 1

1. Poor Boy – featuring Sharde Thomas

2. Girl In The Holler

3. I Don’t Know Her Name

4. Goin’ Down Slow

5. Cadillac Baby

Side 2

6. Too Much Wine

7. I Woke Up

8. So Many Turnrows

9. Pray On

10. Sweet Black Angel

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