Description
Not a lot of people talk about the true origins of bluegrass music, says Swamp Dogg, but it came from Black people. The banjo, the washtub, all that stuff started with African Americans. We were playing it before it even had a name. Blackgrass, Swamp Doggs remarkable new album, is no history lesson, though. Produced by Ryan Olson (Bon Iver, Poliça) and recorded with an all-star band including Noam Pikelny, Sierra Hull, Jerry Douglas, Chris Scruggs, Billy Contreras, and Kenny Vaughan, the collection is a riotous blend of past and present, mixing the sacred and the profane in typical Swamp Dogg fashion as it blurs the lines between folk, roots, country, blues, and soul. The tracklist is an eclectic onebrand new originals and vintage Swamp Dogg classics sit side by side with reimaginings of 70s R&B hits and timeless 50s pop tunesbut the performances are thoroughly cohesive, filtering everything through a progressive Appalachian lens that nods to tradition without ever being bound by it. Special guests like Margo Price, Jenny Lewis, Justin Vernon, and The Cactus Blossoms all add to the excitement here, but its ultimately the 81-year-old Swamp Doggs deliverysly and playful and full of genuine joy and achethat steals the show. The result is a record thats as reverent as it is raunchy, a collection that challenges conventional notions of genre and race while at the same time celebrating the music that helped make Swamp Dogg the beloved iconoclast hes known as today.
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