« Hot blues for a cold winter, » announces The BluzNdaBlood‘s Dave Harrison for its 283rd show, broadcasted on January 26, 2018.

« Here is a great song, that’s a cover of an R.L. Burnside number. Muddy Gurdy is a French band. They met a bunch of the North Mississippi Hill Country blues bloodline, that features Cedric Burnside, Cameron Kimbrough, Pat Thomas, and Sharde Thomas. Enjoy! »

Muddy Gurdy will be released on February 2, 2018, by Vizztone.

The story starts at 43:26.

John Cushley aired Muddy Gurdy’s version of That Girl is Bad, featuring Cedric Burnside, during his Balling the Jack show on Resonance FM in London.

A wonderful project called Muddy Gurdy. The voice you heard that was Cedric Burnside, of the Burnside dynasty of North Mississippi. The project is basically a French band called The Hypnotic Wheels traveling to North Mississippi with a hurdy gurdy, and collaborating with lots of local musicians, including Sharde Thomas, Cameron Kimbrough, Cedric Burnside, Pat Thomas.

The whole project has come together incredibly well. It has got this hypnotic drive, atmosphere, with this edge European of experimentalism underpending it under the hurdy gurdy. A marvelous cross-cultural coalition. Beautiful stuff.

Listen at 27:30 (and the rest of the show as well, as Muddy Gurdy is in really great company, including Etta James and Dorothy Love Coates), and John Cushley’s beautiful critique of the project and the album.



And the link to Balling the Jack for more shows…

Italian journalist Nicola NiQ Conforti enjoyed Shake Em on Down, one of the songs included in Muddy Gurdy, Hypnotic Wheel’s second album to be released on February 2, 2018, which he played on the 184th of his Blues Top 10 show.

« Muddy Gurdy’s name is inspired by the hurdy gurdy, an instrument with a crank, typical in Europe, » explained Nicola NiQ Conforti.

Go to 9:50:

To record their second album, The Muddy Gurdy Mississippi Project, the Hypnotic Wheels trio (Tia Gouttebel, guitar, vocals; Marc Glomeau, percussion; and Gilles Chabenat, hurdy gurdy), traveled to the North Mississippi Hill County and the Delta. They met with descendents of emblematic bluesmen from the area: Cedric Burnside (R. L.’s grandson), Sharde Thomas (Otha Turner’s grand-daughter), Cameron Kimbrough (Junior’s grandson), and Pat Thomas ( James Son’s son).

« The sociologist, researcher, and journalist Scott Barretta –a reference in the domain– already told the Hypnotic Wheels musicians: «What makes your project so unique is that you didn’t come here just to take, but to give and to share, bringing something from your culture. » 

The choice of the locations, the nomadic conditions of recording, the fact that they brought whith them a unique cultural element of our folklore, the hurdy gurdy, their generosity made of this musical and human adventure a rare and unique moment. A story which is told from the inside by one of the musicians –which is rather rare, a choice made by our magazine. What you will read, listen to and watch can only intice you to want to learn more about the project.

By Marcel Benedit, in ABS Magazine.

Read the full editorial by Marcel Bénédit and the story written by Marc Glomeau.

For one group of French musicians, playing music isn’t just the end goal. Rather, their pursuit of creating music is intricately tied to a working philosophy that continually drives rich sensibilities about people, places and culture. And lately, right here in Mississippi.

But why?

The group, Hypnotic Wheels, arrived in Como, Mississippi last week and will spend the next two weeks traveling the Hill Country and Delta working on a project that hopes to further identify the cultural and musical commonalities between rural Mississippi blues musicians and rural French folk musicians, both whose music is born from a place of necessity rather than luxury. […]

By Karen Ott Mayer. Read the full story in The Panolian.