Review Summary: An excellent short and sweet gem of washboard blues which will have you grinning from ear to ear.
Sixty five years ago the non-profit record label Smithsonian Folkways Recordings put eight tracks of Sonny Terry to vinyl accompanied by a washboard band. The album, only twenty-six minutes long with a humble orange and white album sleeve, currently sits in the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and for good reason: it's a dizzyingly raw and breathtakingly brilliant snapshot of both a blues artist at the height of his talent and of the washboard band, a slowly fading genre of music.
Sonny Terry, born Saunders Terrell, was a blind blues harmonica player famed for his energetic performance style punctuated by successive rapid fire harp licks and blues yelps. Already well known in his home state of North Carolina, Terry was discovered by wider (read white) audiences in the early fifties, accompanying many major folk singers of the day such as Woody Guthrie. It was during this period of folk revival that Sonny Terry's Washboard Band was recorded.
For those who aren't up on their old-time washboard bands (and I mean REALLY where have you been?), the basic setup works like so:
A percussion section is created from a variety of found objects such as sticks, frying pans, washtubs and, of course, washboards. Through a mix of scraping, tapping, tinkling and slamming a propulsive junkyard rhythm is born. The sound is powerfully infectious, clattering and shimmying its way along like a freight train of mamboing skeletons.
In fact, this image isn't far from the truth. Alongside the found items, washboard bands are known for using an instrument called 'bones' which are either wooden sticks or literal pieces of bone which would be, (according to the Folkways circa-1955 liner notes) 'held between the fingers and clacked… [to] provide a sharp percussion note.'
This shaking rhythm is underscored by the ghostly bumps'n'thumps of a washtub bass. Here a single bass string has been strung from a broom handle onto the bottom of an overturned washtub to creative the distinctive hollow note sound. Meanwhile melody riffs are carried by sinuous and raw blues harp sometimes blown by Sonny Terry himself, other times by his nephew (also named Sonny Terry).
But the stars of this show are Terry's incredible vocals. Equal parts train whistle and fox yelp; his voice blasts out over every track like a shotgun. It's the glue that holds the ragged structure together, crafting hollering melodies that fill every inch of the sound. This extends to his affect on the lyrics, each track given a wink and a grin by Terry's delivery. Blues though it may be, he makes depression sound fun. From a smattering of double entendres (Custard Pie Blues, Digging My Potatoes) to the wild ways of boozing women (Wine-Headed Woman) every track pulls you into a toe tapping embrace and that just won't let go.
The album is equal parts intimate and raucous. On the one hand you feel like you're sitting in on a band jam, while at the same time a good-god-allmighty party whirls on around you. It's these contradictions that lie at the heart of the recording that make it so compelling. Sonny Terry and his band manage to craft songs that are catchy but powerful, shimmying but downbeat, ragged but tight, all held together by the goodtime grin ever present in Terry's voice. There is a whole lot of electricity to be found in what's almost the ultimate expression of an unplugged sound.
Need a final bit of convincing? If nothing else, this album will have you playing air-washboard. Need I say more?
You can hear the album now on Spotify: Sonny Terry – Sonny Terry's Washboard Band
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