Singer and arranger
Pyeng Threadgill
is the daughter of composer, bandleader, and multi-instrumentalist
Henry Threadgill
and choreographer/dancer
Christina Jones
, a founding member of the celebrated
Urban Bushwomen
.
Sweet Home
offers 11
Robert Johnson
tunes in 11 different settings. While more cynical punters and
blues
purists (ugh) may sigh or wring their hands at such a notion, everyone else can take delight in
Threadgill
's considerable accomplishment. Unlike mere revivalists like
Eric Clapton
or
Peter Green
,
hears and interprets
Johnson
's
as music not of, but for the ages.
Certainly she has models here, most notably
Cassandra Wilson
and
Olu Dara
, but
's take on these tunes doesn't attempt to remake them in her image, so much their own.
's selections are radical. They take
's songs and strips them of the interpetive, anachronistic baggage that has all but killed the spooky and hedonistic majesty of the originals at the hands of well-meaning but woefully rigid performers.
First there's the edgy, swinging
jazz
read of
"Love in Vain,"
followed by the lean, ragged
funk
of
"Phonograph Blues."
The swampy acoustic guitar-and-brass
"Milk Cow Calf's Blues"
is a nod to earlier times, but feels more like it's being performed in busker style on the lawn of Thompkins Square Park. The lone cello accompaniment (played elegantly by
Dana Leong
) on
"If You've Got a Good Friend"
evokes the dignified spirit, if not the timbre, of
Nina Simone
's ghost, and the jazzed-out, near scatted take on
"Dust My Broom,"
where
is accompanied only by a double bass and a trap kit, offers the startling--and sometimes hair-raisin-- originality of her approach. Likewise the tension between second-line New Orleans rhythms at the heart of
"Sweet Home Chicago,"
where jagged
jazz-rock
guitar fills are held expertly in the tense grain of
's voice is jarring, perhaps, but far from unwelcome. She croons, swoons, shouts, growls, whoops, and moans to get these
across proving in the process that in the current era, these tunes that are enduring to be sure, but they continue to hold a cryptic mystique; they are still alluring because they can be articulated in so many different contexts and retain their seductive power and jagged grace.
's recorded debut is an auspicious one. She paints her
shiny black and pushes them headlong into a future where tradition and history are processes of evolution, not quaint curiosities. ~ Thom Jurek