Ingredients include the rolling acoustic blues of Cross Creek Road and the exuberant brass lines, wah guitar and bad-luck lyric of 7 Years. There are the melancholy, clipped chords of Damn If I Do, with its depiction of a lover brought to his knees.
“You got your hooks so deep in my heart/You got me crawlin’, but still you won’t stop”.
The title track switches from an aching slide-blues into a reggae strut, with lyrics that describe a lover who “got them big old hips, look just like two battleships”.
Wilson even spoons up some sun-kissed balladry in I Just Need A Smile, a song that pairs lush chords with lyrics that implore us to ditch our gadgets and re-engage with our humanity.
“Throughout my career and journey I’ve been influenced and inspired by so many different and talented people, places and things,” says Wilson.
“I wanted to bring it all together on this album. To put it all in the stew.”
As a “real country boy” growing up in Edenton, North Carolina, Wilson and his sisters went to church every Sunday. He also worked on the tobacco plantation and in the cotton fields. But it was only when he joined the US army and was stationed in Germany that he heard the blues for the first time. In Edenton he had listened to music only in church and from the local country radio station.
“I met the blues here in Germany,” he says.
“I didn’t know what the blues was before. It was here that I found a part of me that was missing for so long in my life.”
Big Daddy Wilson and band, Dome Room, October 29 (3pm) Eventfinda $30, door $35.
