Search - Percy Mayfield :: Blues Laureate: Rca Years

To Live The Past

RHM | 04/28/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It is just like the old Bob Wills song: time changes everything. Compared to his Specialty and Tangerine sides, Percy Mayfield's three RCA albums were considered mediocre when they first came out in the early seventies, but putting it in Percy's own words: how wrong can a good man be? In retrospect, the only possible conclusion is that most of this material is breathtaking. The world has been without a CD-version of these recordings for much too long and this Raven CD corrects that omission by compiling the best of his RCA recordings. On "Blues Laureate: The RCA Years" you get it all: Mayfield's delicate phrasing, impeccable timing and above all his intelligent and sensitive song writing that, in a unique way, transcends the Blues idiom while remaining firmly rooted in it. The man really had a way with words and although numerous other artists have covered his songs, Mayfield by Mayfield is still the best way to savour them.

Standout tracks include "To Live the Past", "Weakness Is A Thing Called Man" and "Hand In Hand With Another Man". This track from the 1970 LP "Weakness Is A Thing Called Man" contains a sequence of beautiful words that describe pain and heartache in the most eloquent way: "Last time I saw her, I had to turn my head so I could cry, the picture she painted, still in my heart and before my eyes. It was so painful to see my baby walking hand in hand with another man, with another man".

Pure poetry from one of the most gifted songwriters of the past century in any genre and on this CD you will find proof of that in abundance.

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