How I Caught The Blues

Artist: Mississippi Joe Callicott
Album: Ain’t a Gonna Lie to You
Label: Fat Possum Records


I normally wouldn’t write about an album that we just have sitting in the Cave, given the amount of new music that I could be reviewing or ranting about. However, Mississippi Joe Callicott is probably one of the most underappreciated bluesmen ever to have lived. The man needs and deserves a gospel of some kind in order to spread his music and show everybody just how truly brilliant he was, and that task seems to have fallen to me. If I had to compare him to any other musician, I’d say he sounds like Mississippi John Hurt, and while the comparison may be apt, there’s a great deal more to him.
I found this album while I was working as the Circulation Director last year. One of the few benefits of that job was getting to know all of the CDs in our possession really, really well, and sure enough, I happened to be going through the cabinets when I found this album. At the time, I had stopped collecting and actively listening to the blues; I’d been a blues geek throughout part of high school, but from Junior year on my musical focus lay in jazz. It might have been the same day that I discovered a Furry Lewis album entitled “Fourth and Beale” and a Mississippi Fred McDowell album entitled “Mama Says I’m Crazy.” These three albums were responsible for getting me back into blues music. However, I’d heard of the both of them before; Joe Callicott was an unknown.
Joe Callicott was born in Nesbit, Mississippi in 1900 and died in 1969. He recorded two songs in 1930: the “Fare Thee Well Blues” and “Traveling Mama Blues,” along with a few songs where he played second guitar for another artist. These would be his last recorded output until 1967. He was largely unknown until George Mitchell, a musicologist interested in the unknown musicians of southern blues, approached him to record the songs heard on this album. A few songs were omitted from this album, another four were recorded at a music festival in Memphis, and seventeen were recorded for Blue Horizon. This is the sum total of Mississippi Joe Callicott’s recorded output, and it’s extraordinarily difficult to find anything besides this album.
The first track, “Frankie and Albert,” hypnotized me. “Frankie and Albert” is a standard which has been covered by blues and jazz musicians, including Mississippi John Hurt, Duke Ellington, and Jimmie Rodgers, so I was familiar with the song. His guitar playing caught my attention because it didn’t sound like any blues I had listened to before, apart from John Hurt. His singing, however, what was truly caught my attention. Simply put, Joe Callicott is one of the best singers blues music has ever produced. His singing is nothing like other bluesmen; he’s not powerful like Muddy Waters, haunting like Skip James or edgy like Howling Wolf. His voice is smooth and “silky,” to steal a friend’s description, and has an incredible range, going from a high falsetto to a baritone effortlessly. Age did not weaken his voice but rather gave it more character. Callicott’s guitar melodies are not particularly complicated; his guitar playing slowed down and became less advanced as he grew older. However, the melodies are beautiful and work perfectly in conjunction with his singing.
The rest of the album is as good as the opening track and in some cases is better. “Laughing to Keep from Crying” and “Fare Thee Well Blues” are beautiful and sad, “Down to the River Jordan” is peaceful, and the “Good Time Blues” makes you lonesome. Ry Cooder covered “France Chance,” and Callicott does a beautiful rendition of it here. “Roll and Tumble” is one of those songs that everybody has covered, and every performer tries to put their own stamp on it. Callicott’s lyrics are different from every other version out there, and it works perfectly. The songs are firmly in a Mississippi Country Blues tradition, and they make for great listening under just about every circumstance imaginable.
Perhaps I’ve been verbose with this review, talking too much about a musician who by any definition is old news, but Joe Callicott is simply too brilliant for me to not say something about him. The few people I’ve showed his music to have become as obsessed as I have, so something tells me that this isn’t just me. Do yourself a favor, find this album, and celebrate this man who deserves some recognition.

Zeb Larson

KLC World Music/Jazz Director