Track Listing
1. Here Am I
2. Tippin' In
3. Song For Renee (Gate's Tune)
4. When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again
5. Street Corner
6. Pressure Cooker
7. Chickenshift
8. Blackjack
9. Honey Boy
10. Take Me Back to Tulsa
11. Dark End of the Hallway
12. Up Jump the Devil
| Details | | Producer: | Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Clarence Brown, Jim Bateman | | Distributor: | Welk | | Recording Type: | Studio | | Recording Mode: | Stereo | | SPAR Code: | n/a |
Album Notes
Personnel: Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown (vocals, guitar, mandola, fiddle, viola, harmonica); Jeff Pollard, Freddy Wahl (guitar); Don Buzzard (pedal steel guitar, electric dobro); Bobby Campo (flute, trumpet, flugelhorn); Rod Roddy (piano); Leon Medica (bass); David Peters (drums).
Recorded at Studio In The Country, Bogalusa, Louisiana.
Grammy Award winner Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown is surely the most versatile musician the blues idiom has ever known. Brown plays guitar, fiddle, harmonica, mandola and viola, along with singing in a gravely, robust voice. Brown plays the blues but refuses to be limited by the "bluesman" tag. He's gone from leading his own 23-piece big band in the late 1940s to being a deputy sheriff in New Mexico. He's moved from wailing the blues at the prestigious Montreux Jazz Festival in the '70s to appearing on the TV show HEE HAW and making a hot album with country singer/guitarist Roy Clark. In 1977, Brown came out of retirement to record this incredibly varied and eclectic album (originally released on the Music is Medicine label).
BLACKJACK is a rollicking party of an album, mixing blues (the shimmering "Blackjack"), jazz (the fleet "Pressure Cooker"), western swing ("Tippin' In"), country ("When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again") and bluegrass ("Up Jumped the Devil"). If you're a blues purist, you may be disappointed; if you like genre-branching music played with a sense of joy, calculated recklessness and hot musicianship, BLACKJACK holds the winning hand. Deal yourself in!
Editorial Reviews
...in the 70's Gate made a conscious decision tobroaden his palette - jazz, zydeco, country joined the mix - and compartmentalising his music remains impossible. Thankfully.
Mojo (07/01/2002)
...[Gatemouth] plays to please himself. That eclectic outlook made his domestic debut album a challenge, but the world has accepted him on his own stubborn terms ever since.
Living Blues (07/01/1999)
...[Gatemouth] plays to please himself. That eclectic outlook made his domestic debut album a challenge, but the world has accepted him on his own stubborn terms ever since.
Living Blues (07/01/1999)
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