Northern California’s blues singer/ harp player, JeConte mixes it up with legendary blues-rock guitarist/producer, Anders Osborne on his new album, Down By the Bayou.
JeConte doesn’t journey to the dark-continent as often here as he did on last year’s travelogue Mali Blues, except when it’s obvious, like “Mother Africa,” or the tribal drums that anchor the otherwise quite electric, quite rocking “Stuck in the Mud.” Anders introduces him as if he were a visual artist at a cocktail party meeting some future possible backers.
The overall mood is light and breezy, alternating between swampy grinders and coffeehouse acoustic blues (that’s a compliment) that only…
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…occasionally hints at a world outside the American South. And he demonstrates quite a bit of range, vocally and behind his chosen instrument: the title track and “Promised Land” bookend everything with Delta-blues gospel, but “Everything” has a punkish energy and “Little Christina” flirts with country, the genuine kind.