French new sensations Muddy Gurdy also feature on the main stage.

By the East Anglian Daily Times, before Muddy Gurdy’s performance at the Red Rooster Festival, in Euston, Suffolk (U.K.) on Saturday, June 1st.

This is a terrific, offbeat project. A young French blues group featuring a female singer/guitarist and a hurdy-gurdy filling in chords like a Farsifa organ travelled to the North Mississippi hill country outside Memphis and recorded live in-studio (and sometimes on-porch) with grandchildren of former local blues legends Otha Turner, Junior Kimbrough, and R.L. Burnside. Everything works sensationally well. The hurdy-gurdy with its bagpipe-like drone turns out to be a great instrument for one-chord hill-country blues. The French players are high-quality. The young American blues players give superlative performances. This is similar to some of the North Mississippi Allstars projects — some of the same artists, lots of the same feel. If you like the North Mississippi Allstars, or for that matter Turner, Kimbrough, Burnside, John Lee Hooker, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Howlin’ Wolf, this is a record you will enjoy.

– John, an Amazon customer. Get your copy of Muddy Gurdy on Amazon as well. 

French magazine Soul Bag Mag released its « Best of 2018 » lists.

In the list curated by Stéphane Colin, Muddy Gurdy is represented in three categories! In the Albums of the year, in the Songs of the year with « Glory », and in the Revelations.

Eric Doidy also put Muddy Gurdy, Hypnotic Wheels’ second album, in two lists: Albums of the year and Concerts of the year, for Hypnotic Wheels’ show at the Blues Rules Festival in Switzerland.

Three is supposed to be a charm. That is what Jacques Perin does by adding Muddy Gurdy in his Revelations of the year, for both the album and the live shows!

Find all the lists in the news (Actu) section of Soul Bag. 

Muddy Gurdy is one of the most exciting blues sounds today.  Tia Gouttebel, Gilles Chabenat, and Marco Glomeau embrace and celebrate Mississippi Hill Country blues with special skill.  Tia’s impressive guitar and vocals are complimented with Marco’s percussion and Gilles’s hurdy gurdy to deliver a powerful sound.  Tia’s version of Jessie Mae Hemphill’s “She Wolf” is especially moving.

By William Ferris, American author and scholar, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, cofounder with Judy Peiser of the Center for Southern Folklore in Memphis, Tennessee.

NB: In 2019 William Ferris won two Grammy Awards for his Voices from Mississippi album: Best Historical Album and Best Album Notes.

How could anyone have imagined 50 years ago, when I made the first field recordings of R.L. Burnside and Otha Turner, that I would now be writing about some blues artists who traveled from FRANCE to make some field recordings of —and WITH— R.L.’s and Otha’s GRANDCHILDREN! The resulting album, Murdy Gurdy (titled after one of their instruments, a traditional French one called a hurdy gurdy), is so beautifully innovative that I have enjoyed listening to it repeatedly. Cedric Burnside and Sharde Thomas (and Cameron Kimbrough) were obviously inspired by this fresh approach to Hill Country Blues, and they sound great in these one-take, highly spontaneous recordings done on location (with rather more sophisticated equipment than I used in 1967). Since two other Hill Country artists I recorded back then, Fred McDowell and Jessie Mae Hemphill, had no grandchildren carrying on their music, the French trio, Hypnotic Wheels, recorded their own highly energetic and unique versions of “Shake ‘Em on Down” and “She Wolf.” Tia Gouttebel is the singer and guitarist, and may be the most innovative blues musician solidly grounded in tradition performing today.

By record producer and music historian George Mitchell.

George Mitchell has written several books, the latest being Mississippi Hill Country Blues 1967 which includes a collection of a hundred black and white photographs, released in 2013 by the University of Mississippi Press. Before, he published Blow My Blues Away (Louisiana State University Press, 1971), I’m Somebody Important: Young Black Voices from Rural Georgia (University of Illinois Press, 1973), Yessir, I’ve Been Here a Long Time: The Faces and Words of Americans Who Have Lived a Century (E.P. Dutton, 1975).

He also recorded numerous albums, which were released by Fat Possum, Arhoolie, Rounder, Testament, Hightone, Flyright, Southland and Swingmaster. Fat Possum has issued 26 CDs of field recordings known as The George Mitchell Collection.