Boo Boo Davis - Ain’t Gotta Dime

Black & Tan Records

www.black-and-tan.com

www.booboodavis.com

Quality: Highly Recommended

Style: Powerful, Post-War Electric Blues

Time: 65:40

Boo Boo Davis’ sixth CD on Black & Tan Records, Ain’t Gotta Dime, is his best yet. That’s saying something, because his prior outings on this small label based in the Netherlands have garnered international critical acclaim. Drew, Mississippi – named after Boo Boo’s birthplace – was listed at the #4 spot in the influential British MOJO magazine’s Top Blues Releases of 2006, and magazines throughout Europe have embraced this Mississippi bluesman by way of East St. Louis. Boo Boo is part of one of St. Louis’ blues legacy families: for 18 years, Boo Boo and his father and brothers held court every weekend at Tabby’s Red Room in East St. Louis. Back then, he played the lard can as a drum, and later, he picked up the harmonica.

Ain’t Gotta Dime was recorded during a two-day break in Boo Boo’s Summer 2009 tour at Studio Silverster in Utrecht. Returning with Boo Boo from last year’s The Name of The Game CD are Jan Mittendorp on guitar and John Gerritse on drums, and this trio takes the quiet, canal-filled medieval university town straight on down to the Mississippi Delta.

The CD opens with an over-the-top, psychedelic blues scorcher, “Silvermine,” followed by a slow blues ballad “Ten Thousand Dollars.” His emotional, grinding “Cryin’ Blues” is a slow simmering workout for Boo Boo’s harp, and Mittendorp’s driving slide guitar powers “Cake Lady” for an exciting five-minute ride.