Good Morning Blues

Been waiting for this one for awhile, ever since learning of Fat Possum’s acquistion of rights to the George Mitchell tape archives. Mitchell is probably familiar to most readers here, a guy who took the Lomaxes perigrinations as his loose template and traveled the South recording mainly rural musicians. Where he differed somewhat was in his penchant for spending significant time in the communities he visited, building rapport and often deferring to his subjects for direction. Save for a single disc compilation of bluesman Cecil Barfield, they opted to release the material as a series of 45 7” singles. The piecemeal nature of that format wasn’t to my liking, so I kept my wallet buttoned. Same held with with Emusic’s later presentation of portions of the holdings in mp3 form. Instead, I kept periodically pining away for a box set, hoping that one would appear sooner rather than later, subsisting on the scraps previously released on various Arhoolie cd compilations. Months passed and those unrequited desires eventually got buried in a cobwebbed corner of my memory.

A stop by Adam Lore’s indispensible 50 Miles of Elbow Room emporium this morning hipped me to the joyous discovery that my patience has finally paid off (thanks, Adam!). A box set respresenting all 45 volumes does exist and has been available since April. One is winging my way as I type this and I hope to have it hand next week prior to the start of the Deep Blues Festival (see below). I won’t bore readers with the details of the contents. That info is available within a few easy clicks. Suffice it to say that to the fan of country blues and gospel recorded in the field this set represents Rosetta and Grail rolled into one. More when I have the exalted object in my expectant hands….