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Raitt with a very nice take on Leroy Carr’s ‘Prison Bound Blues’ – this is Bonnie singing

and playing the blues just like on her early albums (some great piano playing too!).
Margo Price does a rather twee version of Dylan’s ‘Hurricane’ (about boxer ‘Hurricane’
Carter who was wrongly accused of murder) and Jason Isbell goes off piste by doing
his own original song ‘The Colour of a Cloudy Day’ a thoughtful poignant song with

nice harmonies from Amanda Shire and also lovely strings.

Cedric Burnside does an original Hill Country take on Bukka White’s ‘Parchman Farm’
– Mississippi’s notorious State Penitentiary – while Lukas Nelson has a leisurely,
melodic stroll through Dylan’s ‘I Shall Be Released’. There are two Merle Haggard

songs –‘Sing Me Back Home’ delivered by Hayes Carl and Alison Moorer and ‘I Made
the Prison Band’ by Silverada. Taj Mahal does a spot-on authentic version of
Leadbelly’s ‘Midnight Special’ (and Leadbelly did have first-hand experience of the
prison system), while Raul Malo (The Mavericks) does ‘I Got Stripes’ by Johnny Cash
- but the song is really a re-tread of Leadbelly’s ‘On a Monday’. We finish with the Old

Crow Medicine Show’s pumped-up reworking of Jimmie Rodger’s ‘In the Jailhouse
Now’ complete with upbeat, swirling fiddle and harmonica. This is an interesting
collection of modern takes on old prison songs that is a nice listen with lots of variety
and it was great to hear Bonnie and Taj singing straight blues again just like at the

start of their careers.

Graham Harrison

Jerron Paxton—Things Done Changed—
Smithsonian Folkways ASIN : B0DBFBXJKQ

I saw Jerron ‘Blind Boy’ Paxton at the Red Rooster
Festival in Suffolk in 2018 and as well as being an
authentic blues singer on guitar, piano and harmonica
he was also a personable entertainer and a really nice

bloke. This is his first album of all original material and
we start with the title track, an acoustic blues that
sounds incredibly authentic - both his vocals and guitar

playing, the following ‘Baby Day Blues’ adds DeFord
Bailey-style harmonica to the mix and ‘It’s All Over Now’ (not the Rolling
Stones/Valentinos song) has Jerron picking old timey banjo. There’s more superb
early-days harmonica playing on the unaccompanied ‘Little Zydeco’ – beautiful! – and

the song ‘So Much Weed’ is not about gardening but about marijuana, while ‘What’s
Gonna Become of Me’ sounds both very original and also very authentic.

I’m aware that I’ve used the word ‘authentic’ a lot so far but Jerron’s singing and

playing is certainly that and other synonyms don’t quite capture his mastery of the
country blues genre coupled with his own original spin on it – as on the charming

‘Mississippi Bottom’. The guitar playing on the quirky ‘Out in This World’ reminded
me of the fractured piano playing of Speckled Red and ‘All and All Blues’ and ‘Brown

Bear Blues’ are both guitar-led elegant country blues. ‘Oxtail Blues’ has Jerron singing