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Those looking for the rooty-toot-toot jump
style of the Squirrel Nut Zippers will need to be patient. Keyboardist
Tom Maxwell, singer Katharine Whalen, violinist Andrew Bird,
and guitarist/founder James Mathus have splintered temporarily,
freeing the members to explore different musical paths.
Mathus' solo career, bubbling under the surface for the past
five years, has recently exploded in a volley of deep, hardcore
blues with his sophomore album National Antiseptic. His
solo debut, 1997's Songs for Rosetta, was a benefit for
Charley Patton's daughter Rosetta, who was Mathus' nanny when
he was a child. Only moderately successful commercially, it nonetheless
raised thousands of dollars for the woman and was a critical
favorite. It also established Mathus as a legitimate Delta blues
artist.
Three years later, Mathus was fortuitously tapped for the rhythm-guitar
spot on Buddy Guy's dramatic (and Grammy-nominated) revival Sweet
Tea. That experience, in addition to a longstanding friendship
with Luther and Cody Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars
and their famous dad Jim Dickinson, who co-produced Antiseptic,
led him back to the edgy sound exemplified by the Fat Possum
stable of artists.
Like the Allstars' first disc, National Antiseptic is
an uncompromising example of the revitalization of what Mathus
describes as the "raw juke-joint sound." Fifteen cuts
slosh in the Mississippi mire as Mathus plays guitar hero with
a wicked tone - one derived as much from R.L. Burnside, Junior
Kimbrough, and T-Model Ford (who opened for the Zippers) as from
Creedence Clearwater Revival's John Fogerty, though Mathus says
the latter had little effect on his sound. "I mostly get
my influence from the original generation," he explains.
"I go to the source."
(continue
to part 2)
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