There’s been one hard to find record I’ve been dying to write about. I wanted to write about it for a number of reasons but foremost of these was the fact that it featured Stephen Bruton. Stephen died of cancer in 2009 and aside from the one last project he recorded with T-Bone Burnett this was his last recording. He was sick with cancer at the time Texas Sheiks leader Geoff Muldaur proposed doing the session. I can just imagine the fun they had all getting together in Austin to record these old timey jug band, string band, blues and western swing songs.
In fact here’s a quote from the Boston Herald on exactly what the sessions were like:
“The recording sessions were originally set up to give Stephen something to do,” Muldaur said. “He was fighting cancer, and we got a bunch of people down in Texas just to have some fun and get his mind off it. Stephen was going through chemo torture. He’d come in, laughing, just hours after treatment. Bruton put all that slippery Texas stuff in there. Is there any in the current crop of guitar luminaries to compare?”
Coming in a close second of reasons I wanted to highlight this record is the fact that it features the aforementioned Geoff Muldaur of the famous Muldaur musical family (Maria et al). I’ve loved Mr. Muldaur’s solo work. In fact I would count his two records for Hightone as among the best the genre has ever seen (Password and The Secret Handshake).
I’m not going to plead with you to go and and buy every record I mention but if you are a fan of either contemporary roots music or old timey string bands than you really must purchase Texas Sheiks here through Amazon or in Europe here through the band’s label Tradition-Moderne.
