COREY HARRIS & HENRY BUTLER/vüdü menz
(Alligator))

©Michael Koster, June 2000

Corey Harris, America's most talented young bluesman, keeps throwing surprises at us. Last year's excellent Greens From The Garden (Alligator) departed from his first two, more traditional outings by pulling in elements of ragtime, reggae, and New Orleans jazz and mixing them with his blues to create a startlingly pungent hybrid gumbo. Now he's teamed up with pianist Henry Butler to record an album that celebrates the New Orleans musical tradition in all its swampy glory.

An odd team? Not really. Butler, a New Orleans native, has been playing jazz piano in the city for decades-evoking the spirit of James Booker and Professor Longhair. Harris spent time in the Big Easy as a budding young street musician prior to his rapid rise in the blues world. Butler "turned" a couple years ago when he recorded Blues After Sunset (Black Top), an album that proved just how closely related New Orleans jazz and southern blues truly are. vü-dü menz is more proof in the artistic pudding that an acoustic-based blues guitar player like Harris and a jazz-trained pianist like Butler can find plenty of common ground in the city they love.

Of the 15 songs on this disc, 13 are originals that range from straight blues ("Song Of The Pipelayer") to ragtime ("If You Let A Man Kick You Once") to jazz ("L'espirit De James," a toe-tappin' Butler instrumental) to gospel. This is Spirit music, with a capital S, sung by men who both boast uncommonly deep, rich voices. But it's Harris who packs the harder vocal punch, filling space to the brim with a husky sumptuousness that most singers will never achieve. Of particular note are the lusty "Shake What Your Mama Gave You," the sorrowful "What Man Have Done," and the subtly charged "Mulberry Row," inspired by Harris' visit to the slave cabins of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello plantation.

Musically, however, it's Butler who taps his way to the forefront. From the powerful first note of the disc's opener, the rollicking "Let 'Em Roll," Butler runs the keys like he owns the joint. Harris' acoustic slide and picking are more subtle, and, in their own way, just as powerful. Nevertheless, on the piano-guitar numbers it sounds as if Harris isaccompanying Butler.

For those who pine for solo Harris material, two consolation prizes are included, both of which bypass Butler and feature Harris' stripped-down acoustic slide and vocals. "King Cotton," written by Harris, is a cottonfield back porcher that sounds as if it could easily have been written sometime in the mid '30s. And the gorgeous "Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel?," a traditional spiritual sung beautifully and fervently by Harris, stands as one of this album's finest two minutes. To these ears, Butler's piano gets a little heavy at times, and the solo Harris tunes are a welcome respite.

The disc closes with the wonderful gospel tune, "Why Don't You Live So God Can Use You?," in which Harris and Butler trade off overlapping vocals, accompanied only by handclapping. It's a joyous number-the kind that might fill your body upon exiting a Baptist church somewhere down Louisiana way on a particularly beautiful Sunday-and a fitting end to a powerful, hopeful, and moving disc.