Birthright

Artist: James Blood Ulmer
Label: HYENA Records
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 825005933524
EAN: 0825005933524
ASIN: B0009HLCHE

Release Date: 2005-05-24

Related Categories:

Contemporary Blues

| Blues | Styles | Music

General

| Blues | Styles | Music

General

| Jazz | Styles | Music

General

| Pop | Styles | Music

Electric Blues Guitar

| Blues | Styles | Music

Acoustic Blues

| Blues | Styles | Music

Modern Blues

| Blues | Styles | Music

New York Blues

| Regional Blues | Blues | Styles | Music

Tracks:

Take My Music Back To The Church
I Can't Take It Anymore
Where Did All The Girls Come From
I Ain't Superstitious
White Man's Jail
High Yellow
The Evil One
Geechee Joe
Love Dance Rag
Sittin' On Top Of The World
My Most Favorite Thing
Devil's Got To Burn

Similar Items:

No Escape from the Blues: The Electric Lady Sessions
Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall
Memphis Blood: The Sun Sessions
Bring 'Em In
One Down, One Up: Live at the Half Note

Customer Reviews:

The NEW version of Country Blues!!!.......2006-05-06

This James Blood Ulmer CD is his Best since FREELANCING and TALES OF CAPTAIN BLACK;but actually more innovative because He takes old Country blues and fuses it with his Ornette Coleman harmodelics and he comes up with the most innovative approach to Country Blues since John Lee Hooker;Blood Ulmer has finally found his Calling!!

Ulmer's Modern Masterpiece.......2005-06-18

I've had the opportunity to see James Blood Ulmer a few times over the last few years. I've become a big fan of his distinct originality on the guitar. He plays with freewheeling abandon and gutteral instinct. Of course, in becoming aware of his music, I picked up copies of the two blues records, Memphis Blood and No Escape From the Blues, as well as some of the older stuff like Odyssey and Freelancing (on vinyl). I love all of those albums. The two blues discs are some of my favorites of current recordings in the genre.

But little prepared me for Birthright, which might just be James Blood Ulmer's masterpiece. It's just James Blood Ulmer here completely solo. The record almost feels ancient. Like a Son House or Robert Johnson recording but in the modern day. Parts of it are haunted as Ulmer digs and slashs on the guitar, his voice trembling with a natural vibrato. Truly Spectacular. Other songs like Geechee Joe and a reworking of his song, Where Did All The Girls Come From, are quite beautiful and imbued with grace. At times the music almost seems like folk art. Ulmer doesn't sound schooled in the blues -- there's not a traditional blues lick to be found. The music sounds like an exorcism -- a natural release of song and sound. Birthright is actually a perfect title because it's exactly what an album like this is. What Ulmer's doing can't be faked. It's his and he owns it.

I highly recommend this to people in search of the real thing -- of real music, of real expression, of real soul. James Blood Ulmer - Birthright is a modern gem and one of the most compelling CDs I've heard all year.

The Real (New) Old-time Blues.......2005-06-17

When I first heard this album, I thought it was mostly Ulmer covering old and somewhat obscure acoustic blues songs. But in fact, he wrote all but two of the songs. Somehow he was able to capture the spirit of the real old-time blues within his own personal guitar style, which is derived from the very modern harmolodic approach. It is a solo ablum, with him singing on every cut and playing a spacey flute at the very end. Nonetheless, the sound is very rich, and he manages to fill in all the spaces of the music so that you don't feel that anything is missing.

I have liked most of what Blood Ulmer has put out, but this strikes me as being one of his most beautiful albums. It is heartfelt, musically intriguing, and rich in the tradition of the blues. The original blues players wrote songs about their everyday lives and events, mentioning people and places that they knew. Ulmer recaptures this tradition on Geeche Joe, a song about his grandfather, which is extremely touching in his love for the old man and his struggles with life and racial prejudice. And his rearrangment of Sitting on Top of the World is amazing and beautiful.

I heard his previous blues CD, Memphis Blood, and I found it entertaining but not particularly interesting or deep. This CD is all those things, and I expect to return to it often.

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