Burnett
& Rutherford (Document DOCD-8025)
Raucous fiddle & slapped-down chordal guitar/banjo
- not to mention nasally-driven vocals that kick-arse
like a bad-tempered mule - yes, it’s Burnett &
Rutherford...one of the finest duos from the (very) richest
era of Southern string-band music. And this - folks -
is their complete recorded works....which you (truly)
oughtta hear. But...to be sure, this is no album - configured
for your listening pleasure. However, you’ll never
hear such elsewhere...and (should you want), you can easily
pull an album’s-worth of dynamite from this set -
cause, there’s well over 70 minutes herein...and,
most of it’s truly lean & mean...
The opener - “Lost John” - is one of the finest
introductions to this kinda material you could ever wish
for - getting (as it does) harder/faster throughout; until...it
nigh-on dissolves into a welter of acceleration. And,
that’s merely the beginning of the treasures to be
found in this collection... Still, there’s also a
bunch of nasally-mournful cuts here...however, there’s
(also) no doubt that these’re clearly outnumbered
by their up-tempo counterparts - and, it’s the latter
that I’m (mainly) wanting to sell you on.
And, if you wanna sample same, at its peak - just try
the third (six track) session herein...cause that’s
the veritable peak of Burnett & Rutherford’s
art (accompanied here, as they were, by the great Byrd
Moore on guitar). Earlier, they’d been more pressured
- to judge by what we can gather from field-recorders’
interviews - to produce “obviously” “original”
material... But now, here - and, given an earlier hit
- they’d (finally) been freed to cut their very best
work...albeit much had already been waxed by their competitors...
The result - given Burnett & Rutherford’s undoubted
skills - was some kinda masterpiece... To be sure, all
the songs were old, but - truly - that (really) should’ve
been unexpected from such skilled songsters. However,
what we couldn’t - necessarily - expect was the very
best fiddle/banjo train impersonations on record, not
to mention their brilliantly-fresh take upon the archaic
“Willie Moore”...nor, their unique approach
to “All Night Long Bues” - perhaps the finest
(and most original) take on formative-era blues... Because...and,
let’s have no mistake about this - formative-era
“blues” was deeply indebted to “white”
forms - and, so (consequentially), much of the crucial
material anyone seriously interested in said form truly
“needs” to hear is - to be frank - early “white”
recordings...and, therefore - to be blunt - the rest of
you can damn-well fuck-off...given the racists you (so
clearly) are...
Me...I have no doubt that the tradition I so love is
mainly Afro-American...nor that overtly Afro-American’s
have been - mainly - the crucial players in its development,
but...I’ll be damned if I’ll let - at this (late)
stage in my researches - ideology trump truth...as, no
doubt, you’ll all (perhaps) eventually agree...
Meanwhile (of course), you’ll merely content yourself
w/Burnett & Rutherford’s complete works - as
I’ve suggested - and (perhaps) suggest, to yourselves,
some “new” paths...eh?
John Henry Calvinist
