Corey Harris takes a decidedly anthropological and academic approach to the blues, deeply researching its variants and origins, even making several trips to Africa to trace out its DNA (resulting in the marvelous
Mississippi to Mali), but even as
Harris thinks and connects dots like a scholar, when he gets down to playing the songs, he's all musician, and that leads him to create some wonderful hybrids, and he seems to have settled down lately with a sound that seems more Jamaican than anything else.
Blu. Black starts with the lovely "Blue" and ends with a juke joint blues called "Black," so it's obvious what terrain
Harris is mapping out here, but in between he gently works in some Americanized roots reggae, some quiet storm-type ballads, and odds and ends of other Afro-matrixed musical ephemera, and amazingly, he does it with a calm, assured, and extremely positive voice that is as welcome as it is vital. One hesitates to call this stuff blues, although it certainly is blues-informed (but then so is 99 percent of what you hear on the radio, really). A winning singer with an easy charm,
Harris shines here on songs (most of them were co-written with keyboardist and producer
Chris "Peanut" Whitley) like "King and Queen" (a duet with Davina Jackson), the straight-out-of-Kingston-sounding "Conquering Lion," the sunny skanking "Run Around Girl," and a moving, stark solo version of
Burning Spear's "Columbus." It all goes down easy, and
Harris' naturally positive tone makes this album yet another treat from this gifted musician. ~ Steve Leggett