Homemade
From the opening lines of "Mamie" on dynamic duo John Cephas and Phil Wiggins'sHomemade, the listener is transported far away from whatever living room or car he or she might be sitting in. "Early one morning," that first line goes, and one gets the sense that itisearly morning, on a back porch somewhere. Cephas, on guitar, and Wiggins, on harmonica, play in the Piedmont blues style, but there are bits of Delta, gospel, and even country on this recording, as the pair try on a variety of material for size, including original songs and traditional numbers such as "Trouble in Mind." There's a very laidback feel here, a sense of deliberate avoidance of pyrotechnics and fancy tricks (though the piano solo on closer "Pigmeat" is quite impressive) in favor of letting the music speak for itself. As an added bonus, the liner notes include commentary by Cephas on each song on the CD.--Genevieve Williams