The Vulgar Boatmen are an archetypal cult band. Those of us who love them really, really love them, but the three albums the Indiana/Florida band released between 1989 and 1995 never reached a wide audience. So, the reissue of debut You And Your Sister, bolstered by a pair of new remixes and three previously unreleased tracks, is a gift. Dale Lawrence and Robert Ray wrote strummy, propulsive tunes that could recall Good Earth-era Feelies, the Velvet Underground or Stax/Volt soul. The band will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new Q&A with Lawrence.
Lawrence: I love Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, but of all the Chicago blues guys, my favorite is easily Elmore James. Wolf is, of course, beyond great, and it’s no criticism to say his music can sound as much like rock as it does blues. (His work with Hubert Sumlin, in particular, seems to anticipate Dylan’s “wild Mercury sound.”) But of all post-war bluesmen, it’s Elmore James whose music really captures the offhand freedom of the Mississippi Delta blues in an electric setting. He made some seriously greasy records in the early ’60s, with a sound that’s never been matched. The rhythm section is reduced to a dark burr, as though the whole band’s being fed through a single amp, drums and all. And flying high above that smoldering core is James’ slashing guitar and equally wild vocals. As a slide guitarist, James is without peer, his playing in your face, casual but perfect. Whether on fast numbers like “Done Somebody Wrong” or “I’m Worried,” or slow, tortured ones like “Something Inside Of Me,” the slightest inflections matter. It seems like you can hear every bend of his wrist. His high swooping vocals and wordless asides mirror his guitar work. James and his band build “She’s Got To Go” from the ground up, tentatively, seemingly out of nothing. It’s like a song slowly waking up, levitating out of some swampy marsh. Like all of James’s best recordings, it’s got the feel, a beat that defines down-home.
Video after the jump.
