Peter Hicks - Turpentine Blues

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The 2007 CD from Tasmanian based Peter Hicks is a blues album featuring Peter on vocals and slide guitar, fiddle player Ross Smithard and percussionist Jeremy Sibson.

"The Blues is music of dispossession and release, of haunting misery and jaunty self-mocking fun. In The Story of the Blues Paul Oliver wrote: 'It is the wail of the forsaken, the cry of independence, the passion of the lusty, the anger of the frustrated and the laughter of the fatalist. It is the despair of the jobless, the anguish of the bereaved and the dry wit of the cynic.'

They say that many of the best country blues musicians would play the juke joints on Saturday nights and sing for repentance in the church on Sunday. In this collection, which includes some of my favourite blues, I've tried to capture a small part of that raucous pure spirit. The self-deprecating humour of Blind Willie McTell and of Blind Blake sits alongside the incredible virtuosity of their musicianship and the hardships they suffered and is a testimony to their enduring human spirit.

The Tampa Red song Turpentine Blues was chosen as our title as a tribute to this early pioneer and wizard of the resonophonic guitar. This song tells of the adversity faced by the rural working poor turpentine gatherers. Their employment was tenuous and they were at the whim and mercy of the markets. Surely this is a lesson just as real for today. - Peter Hicks, June 2007"

MP3 samples:

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