Description

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 Welchs old-school juke-joint jones blend full-throttle in the 10 songs on I Dont 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 Welchs smoke-andash voice and mud-crusted guitar and lives up to Fat Possums history of producing edgy but deeply rooted recordings by artists like Junior Kimbrough and RL Burnside.

I Dont Prefer No Blues is the follow-up to last years Sabougla Voices, an all-gospel disc that marked Welchs 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 of from outside influences and a reminder that blues-fuelled primitivism is still personified by a handful of living Southern artists.

Playing blues on stage since Sabougla Voices release has proven transformative for the octogenarian resident of Bruce, Mississippi. Hes toured parts of the US 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.

Big Legal Mess label owner and house producer Bruce Watson took the wheel on I Dont Prefer No Blues, steering Welch into genreblending 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*ck things up a bit. I think I succeeded.

Right now is a great point in my life, says Welch. Im doing things Ive 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.