Sunday, November 08, 2009
A+E, Music, Reviews

Mudcat

“Freedom Creek”  (Music Maker)

Many Southern blues musicians spend their Sunday mornings singing about the Lord. Atlanta’s Mudcat grabs some friends and whips up a batch of songs heavy on sexual innuendos, including a cover of Willie Dixon’s “I Just Want to Make Love to You.”

    At least he did one Sunday last summer, when this session was recorded, sans electricity and overdubs, at the Music Maker studio in Hillsborough, N.C. Mudcat (aka Danny Dudeck) is supported on his ninth album by the stripped-down instrumentation of stand-up bass, spare percussion and trombonist Lil’ Joe Burton. It’s a joyous, homey affair that finds the quartet unwinding on everything from Ray Charles and James Brown covers to a revamped traditional song (the hysterical double entendre of “Big Bamboo”), and closes with the Carter Family’s country standard “Keep on the Sunny Side.” Three Dudeck originals add to the fun.

   Anyone who’s seen Mudcat hold court at Northside Tavern knows he thrives in this environment. Here he effortlessly shifts from the Drifters-styled “San Antone” to the Delta blues of “Empty Room Blues” and Charles’ soul/gospel-charged “I Want to Know” with warmth and loose friskiness. When he swings into the sexually charged “Rattlesnake,” with Lil’ Joe’s trombone slithering around the verses, it sounds like the band is right there in your living room, inviting you to clap along.

    It may have been just another Sunday morning for Dudeck, but this time the tapes were running, allowing us to be flies on the wall as Mudcat and his buddies hang out and play the music they clearly love. 3 STARS—Hal Horowitz