Luther Allison - Hand Me Down My Moonshine

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Music reviews of Hand Me Down My Moonshine

Music Review: Great acoustic blues!
Rating: 5 Stars

Allison's 1992 release "Hand Me Down My Moonshine" is recorded acoustically, as opposed to the electric Chicago blues which comprises most of his body of work. There's nothing more electric on this disc than a steel guitar.

In an era where digital technology has all but eliminated the possibility of a bad record, it's easy to pine for the scratches and over-the-phone qualities of recordings made before quality was an issue that recording media could address. Sometimes it's pleasingly quaint to hear the remnants of a wax cylinder in a Bessie Smith song, or whatever made Woody Guthrie sound as if he were standing three or four rooms down from a microphone. While most of "Moonshine" was recorded on digital audio tape - the two grittiest songs were recorded at studios near Allison's home in France - Allison's voice brings back that found-in-the-back-of-the-Library-of-Congress feeling that makes those old recordings so endearing. His pipes hit their apex in the title track (one of the two recorded in Paris), swerving between church-balcony highs and dirt-floor lows.

Allison's voice overshadows most of his guitar work, which again in the title track reaches complexities hard to describe to someone who isn't a blues fan. French bluesman Patrick Verbekes plays steel guitar ably on "You're the One," a classic blues conceit, and Allison's own son Bernard screams on slide guitar in the disc's final track, "Meet Me In My Hometown."

Other tunes stand out, like "Farmer's Child," an ode to - and lament of - Allison's rural upbringing and family history, and the infinitely sexy "Don't Burn My Bread," which - no offense to Chris Isaak - should have been used in that dirty scene in "Eyes Wide Shut."

All in all, the disc starts out upbeat and winds up low and grinding, like a day spent listening to friends play music in your home - which is exactly what Allison wanted from the album.

Description of Hand Me Down My Moonshine

Blues CDs

• Music > Styles
• Pop