BRUCE, Miss.
— At age 82, bluesman Leo “Bud”
Welch rocks on stage like a teenager
— dancing and spinning as he beats out jagged chords and grimy solos on his
pink, sparkle-covered guitar. That raw youthful energy and Welch’s old-school
juke-joint jones blend full-throttle in the 10 songs on I Don’t
Prefer No Blues, his second release for Fat Possum
Records’ subsidiary Big Legal Mess. The album is a
garage-blues manifesto that weds waves of prickly six-string distortion and
gutbucket drums with Welch’s smoke-and-ash voice and mud-crusted guitar — and
lives up to Fat Possum’s history of producing edgy but deeply
rooted recordings by artists like Junior Kimbrough and
R.L. Burnside.
I Don’t
Prefer No Blues, due
out March 24, 2015 on Big Legal Mess, is the
follow-up to last year’s Sabougla Voices, an all-gospel
disc that marked Welch’s debut as both a recording artist and a songwriter. That
album was heralded as a fresh breath of rust-bearing air — a throwback to an era
of rural music free from outside influences and a reminder that blues-fueled
primitivism is still personified by a handful of living Southern
artists.
I Don’t
Prefer No Blues
is what the preacher at Welch’s church said when he found out Welch was making a
blues album. “Up until Sabougla Voices came out, I had
only played spirituals in the church and in tents for about 50 years,” Welch
explains.
But
these days Welch does prefer blues. Playing blues on stage since
Sabougla Voices’ release has proven transformative for the octogenarian
resident of Bruce, Mississippi. He’s toured
parts of the U.S. and Europe, and played for audiences of all ages at
international festivals and such prestigious events as the Americana Music Association
Festival and Conference
in Nashville.
“I’m
doing things I never thought I’d do,” Welch relates. “I never thought I’d get to
play outside of Mississippi or travel to other countries. Now I’m playing for
all kinds of people and seeing the world. Just so, the first time I had to go on
a plane I thought they’d have to blindfold me, knock me out and tie me up to get
me on board. I’m also keeping all my bills paid up to date, which I couldn’t
before.”
Getting
on board for his first blues album was easier. Big Legal Mess
owner and house producer Bruce Watson took the wheel, steering
Welch into crunching, genre-blending sonic and creative territory. “The deal I
made with Leo was the first record would be gospel and the second would be
blues,” Watson says. “Honestly, I was just trying to do something different than
your typical blues record — trying to f--k things up a bit. I think I
succeeded.”
That’s clear
from the opening cut, a take on the traditional “Poor Boy.” The tune, which is
the sole track produced by Mississippi neo-trad firebrand Jimbo
Mathus, frames Welch’s scorched-oak singing with a rattling drum
kit, upright bass, a choir and the angelic voice of Sharde Thomas — a doyenne of
ancient Mississippi music who inherited the Rising Star
Fife & Drum Band from her late grandfather Othar
Turner. The contrast between the innocence in Thomas’ honeyed tones and
the weathered experience in Welch’s woof antes up the drama that’s maintained
throughout I Don’t Prefer No Blues.
Mathus also
added clangorous guitar to the album. “Girl in the Holler” thrives on his and
Welch’s angular, dueling riffs. And Mathus provides psychedelic fuzz for the
Watson-penned “I Don’t Know Her Name,” where Welch literally barks for his
would-be lady like a lusty dog.
Welch’s “So
Many Turnrows” is about his many years plowing behind a mule during his youth
and young manhood. “I grew up on a farm and had to walk two miles to school in
the rain and mud,” he recounts. “Most of the time we didn’t have no money from
March to November, when the crops came in, but I made it through eighth grade
and then I started plowing mule and hoeing cotton.” Welch worked as a logger for
the 35 years before he retired in 1995. “I stood next to that chain saw all day,
so that’s why I don’t hear too good.”
Which
explains the consistently raw, buzzing volume of Welch’s guitar, both live and
on I Don’t Prefer No Blues, where his guitar colors even
the blues classics “Sweet Black Angel” and “Cadillac Baby” with a patina of rock
’n’ roll overdrive.
“Playing
guitar is my favorite ‘like,’ ” Welch says. “I learned by hearing records by
Jimmy Reed, B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy
Waters … and I saw them when they came through Bruce. I once even had a
chance to audition for B.B. King’s band, but I didn’t have the
bus fare to get to Memphis.”
“Right now is
a great point in my life,” Welch continues. “I’m doing things I’ve never been
able to do before and I feel good doing them at an age when a lot of people are
dead. So as long as I can I want to go around the world trying to send
satisfaction to people. Doing that is a great feeling to me.”
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