Sad Days, Lonely Nights

All Night Long Kimbrough was easily the most arresting figure in "Deep Blues," the documentary movie and soundtrack album about the contemporary Delta blues scene. Music critic Robert Palmer, the movie's "guide," produced All Night Long, Kimbrough's first full length album after more than 40 ye...	Most Things Haven't Worked Out	God Knows I Tried This CD has a considerable mix of music on it, which is understandable given that it's a posthumous release of tracks collected over five years of recording. Every track, however, showcases guitarist Kimbrough's distinctive style, which regional isolation made very different from...	You Better Run: The Essential Junior Kimbrough When Junior Kimbrough died in January 1998, part of the spirit of Mississippi hill-country blues went with him. He was a proud musician, aware of his African roots and his artistic singularity--perhaps the last unique voice in the genre. The sound of his bawling singing and unpre...	Burnside on Burnside Mississippi hill country patriarch R.L. Burnside's two previous albums dabbled in remixes and trip-hop experimentation geared to the college-rock market. This is a restorative: pure slide 'n' drone blues caught live in January 2001 at Portland, Oregon's Crystal Ballroom. The 73-y...
Chulahoma For their latest, Akron, Ohio duo The Black Keys have brought forth an EP of six songs by Junior Kimbrough. This is no mere dalliance; the late elder Mississippi blues musician was a powerful influence on guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney. Their three previous alb...	You See Me Laughin' You See Me Laughin' is a full length documentary that takes a look at the often untamed lifestyles of the last great North Mississippi bluesmen and the Oxford, MS based label- Fat Possum Records- that struggles to record them. The film is an exciting collage of exclusive intervie...	Too Bad Jim	Do the Rump!	Thickfreakness Akron, Ohio's Black Keys offer crunchy, riff-heavy blues-rock that is remarkably rich and textured, particularly when one considers that they are merely a duo. Continuing in the vein of their 2002 debut, The Big Come Up, this sophomore CD leavens their garage blues with enough in...

excellent follow--up.
As you may know, most follow-up albums suck. This is mainly do to the fact that the main surprise that makes the artist so special has already been exposed, so when the second disc comes out it, the artist has nothing new to offer. Or they have taken there music in such a radicly different or over-produced direction, that it doesn't even sound like that artist. Well this CD is different. Even though Kimbrough keeps the sound that you're probably familiar with, he still has some new tricks up his sleave, like kenny brown's slide playing. It even has a verson of "Crawlin' Kingsnake" on it! This is the kind of album that makes you realize that I'm not crazy to like blues.

...M-I-CROOKED LETTER-CROOKED LETTER-MOJO...
...THIS IS THAT ALBUM! YOU WANNA GET DRUNK AND REMINISCE ABOUT A LONG LOST LOVE, FUSS ABOUT HOW YOUR OLD LADY IS DOIN YOU WRONG, FLIRT WITH THAT NEW GIRL WORKIN DOWN AT THE DOLLAR STORE OR GET UP AND GO GET BACK WHATEVER IT WAS THAT WAS TAKEN FROM YOU...THEN THIS IS THAT ALBUM TO GET YOU IN THE MOOD FOR ALLA THAT!THIS MAN IS SERIOUSLY SLEPT ON, BUT MR. KIMBROUGH HAS BROKEN THRU TO MY TOP 5 OF FAVORITE ARTISTS...JUST BEHIND ARETHA FRANKLIN, ISAAC HAYES, THE O'JAYS AND OUTKAST! THIS MAN IS PURE AND HIS CARRYIN' ONS WILL GET YOU CLOSER TO YOURSELF AS HE REACHES IN AND PULLS YOUR SOUL OUT!

Trance-Boogie Transcendence
I saw Junior open for Iggy Pop in about 1996. He sat in his chair, unmoving, for 45 minutes and played what seemed like one single, endless song. When he finished, I couldn't remember how he'd began, but I knew I'd been taken someplace far, far away, and I was sad to be back. This album conjures that same feeling for me. The word "groove" has been poisoned by association with post-hippie jam-band idiocy, but Junior's music grooves. It will move you in ways you didn't think possible. It will burn tracks into your brainpan and it will never leave once it's in you. Yes, you've lived this long without this album, but once you hear it you'll wonder how that could have been possible. Junior Kimbrough changed my life. Let him change yours.

Soul Blues, Indeed
Half mountain holler, half strangled cry, Junior Kimbrough's was a music in which the elementary components dripped with something deeper. He didn't just restore the hypnotic ramble and hum of classic north Mississippi blues, he gave it a steroid shot with his slow-boiling style and his wide groove. This is a far cry from the shred-manic, soul-deprived garbage which is being passed off as the blues most of the time today. And it's as close to the core of humanness as contemporary blues will ever get without yanking Robert Johnson or Fred McDowell up out of their graves, fitting them with electric guitars, and urging them to let it loose right there with the elder upstart.

Transcendent. Junior Kimbrough is a monster.
I don't listen to Junior Kimbrough's music as often as I might but when I do, I binge. And Sad Days Lonely Nights is the one I start playing when I do. No one can get his tone. He was a stunning artist, one of the great under-recognized bluesmen of our time.