SWAMP DOGG Blackgrass - From West Virginia to 125th St (LP)

(Oh Boy Records) 12 tracks

 “Not many people talk about the true origins of bluegrass music, but it came from black people. The banjo, the washtub, all those things were developed by African-Americans. We were playing it before it even had a name.” - Swamp Dogg
Produced by Ryan Olson (Bon Iver, Poliça) and recorded with an all-star band that includes Noam Pikelny, Sierra Hull, Jerry Douglas, Chris Scruggs, Billy Contreras and Kenny Vaughan, the collection is a riotous blend of past and present that, in typical Swamp Dogg fashion, mixes the sacred and the profane and blurs the lines between folk, roots, country, blues and soul. The tracklist is eclectic - new originals and old Swamp Dogg classics sit side-by-side with reinterpretations of R&B hits from the '70s and timeless pop songs from the '50s - but the performances are thoroughly cohesive, filtering everything through a progressive Appalachian lens that alludes to tradition without ever being bound by it. Special guests like Margo Price, Vernon Reid, Jenny Lewis, Justin Vernon and The Cactus Blossoms all add to the excitement, but ultimately it's the 81-year-old Swamp Dogg's performance - smart and playful and full of genuine joy and pain - that steals the show. The result is a record that's as reverent as it is raunchy, a collection that challenges conventional notions of genre and race while celebrating the music that made Swamp Dogg the beloved iconoclast he's known as today.