Search - T-Model Ford :: She Ain't None of Your'n

John Lee Hooker, Call Your Office: Your Successor's Here

BluesDuke | Las Vegas, Nevada | 07/21/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Let the world pine away awaiting the new Stevie Ray Vaughan (while imbibing yet plenty more freshly unearthed product from the old Stevie Ray Vaughan), or decide whether Jonny Wayne Duarte are the real deal or a trio of rock and roll poseurs using the blues as their costumery; let it still wonder when Eric Clapton is going to make up his mind between the blues he loves and the pop he's made a devil's bargain with. Here is the most unapologetically elemental and rooted of today's bluesmen (Junior Kimbrough, after all, has gone to his reward). And, here is the proof that, if anyone holds claim to John Lee Hooker's mantle as the blues boogie king, it is he. T-Model Ford is a shamelessly raw, exuberantly menacing blues presence, even when he nicks a line or three from an older blues and strangles it into his own. And if you think you'll be able to sit still through this (or any of his albums), you're either a quadriplegic or an android. Not a single lick of technically brilliant but aesthetically boring shred-rock-style soloing; not a single whelp of ersatz anguished hormonal screaming masquerading as real soul. Just round after round of stripped-to-the-trunk, contemporary north Delta blues with a husky, edgily fried menace underwriting the hit-the-roof-and-dance exuberance. And, it's no huge aggregation cranking out this huge and deep sound - just Ford and his slash-and-burn guitar with a drummer, though an organist slips in for a couple of rounds and rather engagingly. Very well, maybe we'll never really replace John Lee Hooker, but T-Model Ford makes the best case for picking up where the Hook leaves off - and then some. Keep all Jonny Wayne Duarte albums back about five thousand feet..."

Excellent!

deepbluereview | SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA USA | 03/26/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"OK, call me old and hard to please, but I prefer this stuff to some of the glam blues-rock that is being released today. T-Model Ford was between 78 and 80 years old at the time of this release and if not for the late Robert Palmer and Fat Possum, probably would not ever have been recorded. Like his "contemporary" peers, Cedell Davis, Paul "Wine" Jones and the incomparable RL Burnside, Ford represents one of the last authentic Mississippi Hills bluesmen whose music was often overlooked and underappreciated. As such, many of them never recorded, were poor, hungry and plenty angry. Oddly, it is these very traits that set these individual apart from the better known Texas or Chicago bluesmen.The music is harsh and primitive and yet tells a story that needs to be heard. Ford nails Howlin' Wolf's "How Many More Years" and presents it in a manner never before heard. While "Leave My Heart Alone" carries a beat not unlike John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom". Ford raises the dead on "Chicken Head Man" and draws attention from punksters with the heart stopping beat on "Take A Ride With Me". T-Model Ford hits you with plenty of down and dirty guitar and thumping drums and presents an attitude befitting of a teen. Grab this one before it's too late."