Charlie Musselwhite - Mississippi Son

Mississippi Son is a studio album by American blues harmonica musician Charlie Musselwhite, released in June 2022 via Alligator Records.

Mississippi-born, Memphis-raised, Grammy Award-winning music legend Charlie Musselwhite doesn't just sing and play the blues; he is, in every sense of the word, a bluesman. Growing up, he not only learned the music first-hand from many of the genre's most influential artists, he also absorbed the lifestyle. "It's an attitude," Musselwhite says of playing the blues. "A way of living life." Over the course of his six-decade career, Musselwhite has released nearly 40 albums. He is renowned worldwide as a master harmonica player, a seasoned, truth-telling vocalist and an original songwriter rooted deep within the blues tradition. As many of his fans know, he's also a country blues guitarist of great depth, warmth and subtlety.

On his new Alligator Records release, Mississippi Son, Musselwhite, in addition to playing his famed harmonica, features his guitar work throughout the entire album. On each of Mississippi Son's 14 songs, including eight powerfully stark originals, Musselwhite's straight-from-the-soul vocals and melodic blues harmonica playing are the perfect foil to his deceptively simple, hypnotic guitar work.

Having recently moved back to Mississippi from northern California, Musselwhite recorded the stripped-down, haunting, emotionally raw performances in Clarksdale, in the heart of the Delta.

From the self-penned, autobiographical opener Blues Up The River to his plaintive reading of Charley Patton's Pea Vine Blues to his own, deep-in-the-tradition instrumental Thinking Of Big Joe (on which Musselwhite plays his friend Big Joe Williams' guitar), each song echoes Musselwhite's Mississippi roots and reflects his personal take on the world around him.

Whether he's reimagining The Stanley Brothers (Rank Strangers) or creating a song based on a vision (When The Frisco Left The Shed), or personalizing John Lee Hooker's Hobo Blues, his honest, soulful vocals, like his every-note-matters harmonica playing and idiosyncratic guitar work, overflow with hard-earned authenticity and lasting emotional intensity.

Musselwhite calls his blues, "secular spiritual music," a sound he's been perfecting since he, as a young teenager, played his first E7 chord on his Supertone acoustic guitar. Upon hearing and feeling the chord's blue note, the future blues master thought, "I have to have more of that."

Now, with Mississippi Son, Musselwhite has come full circle, returning home to Mississippi after decades in Memphis, Chicago, San Francisco and points in between. Amalgamating all he's learned and absorbed throughout his decades of worldwide touring, Musselwhite imparts sage wisdom in every song he writes, sings and performs. "Blues tells the truth in a world that's full of lies," he intones in Blues Gave Me A Ride, at once telling his own story and plainly summing up the genre's timelessness.

Through his evocative vocals, masterful harmonica playing, and note-perfect Southern country blues guitar, Charlie Musselwhite, on Mississippi Son, leans forward and delivers the blues' honest truth.

"Superb and compelling…Charlie Musselwhite, with unabashed excellence, sets the standard for blues." —Rolling Stone

This album is a limited edition on translucent blue coloured vinyl housed in a single pocket sleeve, pressed in the US via Alligator Records.