(Acoustic Blues) Samuel James - For Rosa, Maeve and Noreen - 2009, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

As a solo act who plays strictly traditional rags and blues, this consonant guitarist, singer - songwriter has already made a name for himself playing festivals like the Arkansas Blues & Heritage Fest, as well as other prestigious events around the country. His demeanor is soft, yet raspy and rugged. A gentle fingerpicker, Samuel is also an experienced slide player, and leaves his bottleneck signature on many of the songs here. With fourteen tracks of completely original material, this CD is laden in the blues. It relishes a sound that snakes between delta, folk and ragtime, dutifully ending with “Path Of Ashes,” which is centered around a gospel with an old time sway to this drunken, slightly chaotic melody of harmonica, guitar and banjo all played & dubbed by James’.

Tunes like the slow dirge of “Wooden Tombstone,” which is left as an accapella number, and the intricate guitar weavings of the instrumental “Trouble On Congress Street Rag.” His serene attitude on the guitar shows through on numbers like the effectual finger picking lullaby of “Rosa’s Sweet Lil’ Love Song” and “Joe Fletcher’s Blues.” The opening track “Bigger, Blacker Ben” tells the story of a man caught in the crossfire, and manages to walk out alive only to go and console the wives of the dead men in the shootout. His material is well told, and his musical background makes him the perfect folk singer. Someone who is passing along new stories of an art form that is over 130 years old.(C) 2009 Dirk Wissbaum -- Bluessource.com

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Some blues purists will say that the blues were meant to be played and sung by a single gentleman or woman, and arrangement-wise, to be kept stripped down as much as possible -- which was the preferred method in the genre's dawning days. If you're one of these aforementioned music buffs, then Samuel James is the bluesman for you. As evidenced on his 2009 release, For Rosa, Maeve and Noreen, James follows the same musical template he laid down on his previous release, Songs Famed for Sorrow and Joy. Think blues from the '20s with a modern-day production, and you're not far off from what lays within For Rosa, Maeve and Noreen. Once more, James has assembled an album's worth of authentic blues ditties, especially such standouts as the album-opening "Bigger, Blacker Ben," as well as "Joe Fletcher's Blues" and "Wooden Tombstone" -- the latter of which is comprised solely of James' voice and what sounds like the tap of his shoe keeping the time. Few modern-day blues revivalists get it right, as more settle for mere regurgitations of licks popularized by Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. But Samuel James is certainly an exception, as heard throughout For Rosa, Maeve and Noreen.(C) 2009 Greg Prato -- Allmusic.com

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It's so easy not to think about the music Samuel James makes much at all. Built from the very pillars of American music, it's easy to dismiss it as an homage, a throwback, a curiosity. And it is all those things, with James's ageless voice — he could be 20 or 80 — and variety of stringed instruments that scoff at modern technology.

In some ways, it's downright innocuous, as likely to appeal to toddlers and grandmothers as the modern-day equivalents of those who marveled at blind-old (a young 40, actually) Doc Watson when he played the Newport Folk Festival for the first time in 1963.

But it's hard, also, not to think about issues of race and class when you hear Samuel James play this music, in this way. Just as it's striking to see the straight-laced, square-framed earnest and preppy young men and women applauding politely in front of the ivy and brick for Watson on the Newport lawns in those old black-and-white photos ("Gee, Nelson, I really do think this hillbilly music is what America was built on, don't you?"; "By all means, Amanda, I do. Let's say we drink bourbon tonight in his honor — it's made down in Kentucky, you know"), so, too, is it interesting to imagine our white-bread populace here in Maine marveling as they do at James's "Big Blacker Ben," where he updates us on Ben's exploits by telling a story of him being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night by hooded Klansmen because of rumors he's "been with white women."

Making America's historical black eye funny is hard to do, but James pulls it off: "Never in my life have I seen such cowardly racists/You're too scared to even let this black man see your faces/And one by one they pulled their hoods off their heads/He said, 'You're all just as ugly as all your wives said.'"

They try to hang Ben, but the rope turns out to be too long. James chuckles.

It's no big thing, right? A modern artist creating new traditionals? Telling stories you've never heard, but seem familiar? Theoretically, those old traditionals aren't all that brilliant to begin with. "Going Down the Road Feeling Bad"? I think I could have thought that one up myself, given enough time with the G, C, and D chords. The thing is, though, no one has ever thought up "I've Haddock up to Here" before, and not only does James do a silly song without making you wince in embarrassment, he makes you wonder why it's not in the songbook they give to new students at that 317 Main Street bluegrass academy in Yarmouth.

Ultimately, I'd argue James's genius comes not in the whistle solo on "Rosa's Sweet Little Love Song," or the crescendo up the neck on "A Sugar Smallhouse Valentine," or the manic and intense double-time of "Trouble on Congress Street Rag," but in the way he makes it seem so genuine and important.

Noreen? "She's dancing for the Philistines." Like "Old Joe Clark" and "Angelina Baker" before them, James's characters are society's underbelly and underclass, sometimes recognizable in today's strippers and working poor, sometimes historical figures that make us pine for days when heroes and good guys were easier to come by (as if they ever were).

"John Ross Said" is as low-down and dirty as Andrew Jackson treated its title character, the first elected leader of the Cherokee and the man who oversaw the trail of tears that left "Oklahoma ground forever red." What did John Ross actually say? "We are overwhelmed; our hearts are sickened; our utterance is paralyzed, when we reflect on the condition in which we are placed by the audacious practices of unprincipled men." Isn't that a sentence that could have been said last week? To say that James does Ross justice is enough high praise.

On his third full-length album of original material, James continues to grow as an artist. He fingerpicks better than ever, sure, and the production leaves you feeling like you just spent 10 hours with the man in a jail cell, but it's the gravitas you notice now. He no longer conveys the air of a man playing a character. He has become the role he's asked himself to play.(C) 2009 Review via the Portland Phoenix

Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 4 from 23. January 2008

EAC extraction logfile from 24. September 2009, 1:22

Samuel James / For Rosa, Maeve and Noreen

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1 | 0:00.00 | 3:30.29 | 0 | 15778
2 | 3:30.29 | 4:13.66 | 15779 | 34819
3 | 7:44.20 | 3:51.06 | 34820 | 52150
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12 | 38:39.51 | 3:27.71 | 173976 | 189571
13 | 42:07.47 | 2:56.38 | 189572 | 202809
14 | 45:04.10 | 3:04.60 | 202810 | 216669

Track 1

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Track 7

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Track 9

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Track 10

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Track 14

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AUDIOCHECKER v2.0 beta (build 457) - by Dester - opdester@freemail.hu
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Path: ...\(Acoustic blues) Samuel James - For Rosa, Maeve and Noreen (2009)

01 -=- 01 - Bigger, Blacker Ben.flac -=- CDDA (100%)
02 -=- 02 - Cryin' Blind.flac -=- CDDA (100%)
03 -=- 03 - Joe Fletcher's Blues.flac -=- CDDA (100%)
04 -=- 04 - A Sugar Smallhouse Valentine.flac -=- CDDA (99%)
05 -=- 05 - I'll Break Your Promise.flac -=- CDDA (100%)
06 -=- 06 - Rosa's Sweet Lil' Love Song.flac -=- CDDA (100%)
07 -=- 07 - Darlin' Maeve.flac -=- CDDA (99%)
08 -=- 08 - I've Haddock Up To Here.flac -=- CDDA (100%)
09 -=- 09 - Miss Noreen.flac -=- CDDA (100%)
10 -=- 10 - Trouble on Congress Street Rag.flac -=- CDDA (99%)
11 -=- 11 - John Ross Said.flac -=- CDDA (100%)
12 -=- 12 - The Water's Always Changing, But the River....flac -=- CDDA (100%)
13 -=- 13 - Wooden Tombstone.flac -=- CDDA (100%)
14 -=- 14 - Path of Ashes.flac -=- CDDA (99%)

Summary 99,71% CDDA

237601956