The Blue Rider Trio - Harp, Steel and Guts (2000)

The fact that one of the best acoustic blues albums of the year comes from three white boys from Maryland might surprise you – that is, until you realize that it’s the return of the Blue Rider Trio, who kicked up a lot of shit out of nowhere with their 1992 release Preachin’ the Blues and then cruelly disappeared back into their main gigs, leaving us sick with need.
Now everyone’s gonna get well, because they’re back, and what was not broken has not been fixed. Harp, Steel and Guts is the second round of acoustic boilermakers you were ordering, with guitarist/vocalist Ben Andrews, harp wailer Mark Wenner (The Nighthawks) and bassist Jeff Sarli (Big Joe & The Dynaflows) serving up the same mixture of jazzy, dark-around-the-edges folk-blues choogle as last time. The differences that do exist are: no Blind WillieMcTell, a little less Robert Johnson and a little more Leadbelly. The good news, besides the trio’s continuing musical evolution, is the sonic purity of the recording; it’s the same hear-yourself-think purity that had audiophiles drooling in ’92.
You’ve never heard ‘em? No problem. You’re gonna hear a lot of classic-rock touchstone blues riffs (Johnson’s “Last Fair Deal Gone Down” and Andrew’s impressive original “Easy Rider”), some jazzy, traditional cakewalks straight off the streetcorner (“Salty Dog,” “Ride Till I Die,” Leadbelly’s “Silver City Bound”) and a little serious rustic apocalyptrica (a stunning “Death Have No Mercy in This Land,” taken from the pages of American history and filtered through the Rev. Gary Davis). It’s all shockingly authentic, despite the reverence. These white boys ain’t interested in framing roots traditions, or updating them, or even re-creating them. They simply want to live them again, to breathe life into the common clay of ancient blues and make it walk and talk. That they do with the necromancy of wizards.