Back to the Country
By no means are Shines and Pryor dotards looking back with teary eyes. The blues' emotional dualities-sadness leavened with humor, warmth caught up in despair, pride alongside disquiet-are keenly reflected by fifteen country blues the two recorded earlier this decade. Granted their facility isn't what it once was, yet Shines the singer and Pryor the harp player/vocalist, J.O.B. labelmates forty years ago in Chicago, still employ tonal modulations, phrasing, and space with special knowledge-and no one has interpreted Robert Johnson songs as knowingly as Mr. Shines (four examples here). That's John Nicholas and Kent Du Shane ably filling in for poststroke.  Shines on guitar.-- © Frank John Hadley 1993--From Grove Press Guide to Blues on CD