'Chantey'

The idea of remixing Alan Lomax's venerable recordings of American roots music will strike some as sacrilege, but before you judge, listen. The collaborators here--under the collective name Tangle Eye--are clearly roots music aficionados, and they strike an admirable balance between respect and courage in reshaping some of America's signature recordings of the past for a contemporary audience.

To get a sense of the approach here, Lomax's 1959 recording of Ed Lewis singing "John Henry" doesn't just get transplanted into yet another boom-thump hip hop groove. Instead, Henry Butler (keyboards), Tony Trishka (banjo), and Steve Reynolds (bass) rework it as hard-swinging but understated New Orleans funk. Vinyl hiss and pop are the first thing you hear, and they act as a subtle groove track through the entire track. "Drownded" is a sultry reworking of Mrs. Sidney Carter's 1959 song "Pharoah," cool, gospel-tinged blues with shimmering organ and crisp dobro work from Rob Ickes. On "Heaven" we start to get some more adventurous mixing as two related performances of Fred McDowell's "Wished I Was in Heaven Sitting Down" collide in a chugging, harmonica-driven remix that even provides a brief window back to one of the original tracks for a moment before we hear it morphed back into the groove.

"Home" preserves the prison song feel of Ervin Webb's original ("I'm Going Home") even as quasi-reggae aesthetics and oozing, electric slide guitar by Corey Harris bring the sound right up to date. On "Parchman Blues" Henry Jimpson Wallace's late '40s prison performance of "No More, My Lawd" really sounds like a voice from the past amid a spare, sumptuous, slow-drag mix that features a soulful trombone solo by Delfayo Marsalis. Perhaps the most satisfying track on this inspired album, Bessie Jones's 1959 "O Death" acquires heft with the addition fat double bass and old-timey fiddle--both by Dirck Powell--but its fundamental power comes from the original and is only enhanced by the modifications.

"Chantey" takes a gospel vocal performance by the Bright Light Quartet and morphs it into roots reggae in the manner of early Toots and the Maytals, with a tasty brass section. The blend works so well that you end up feeling that reggae must have been there all along. It just took the right musicians to make us hear it. Closing out this 12-song set, "Soldier" transforms the Peerless Four's "I'm a Soldier in the Army of the Lord" into a driving house mix, more 70s funk than hip-hop, with exploding Hammond B-3 organ work from Davell Crawford, a rowdy conclusion to a bold and surprising work of musical montage.

Contributed by: Banning Eyre