Meet Me in the City
Junior Kimbrough's ragged-but-right blues stylings are roots music with the down-home dirt still clinging to them, and they radiate honesty and authenticity with every note. This disc is an unofficial prequel to Kimbrough's classic 1992 releaseAll Night Long, although half the songs, including a trio of live festival numbers (like "All Night Long"), were recorded later. The heart and soul of the disc is a quartet of tunes recorded at Kimbrough's home, and while the production qualities may horrify audiophiles, the primal power of the music will entrance and endlessly entertain fans of back-to-the-basics blues. As distant from the formulaic, high-gloss music currently passing for blues as Mississippi juke joints are from Hollywood recording studios, "Meet Me in the City" is a welcome and rewarding reminder that the best blues comes from unfiltered emotional expression and not from corporate calculations. --Michael Point