3/11/2008 Dig Up The Roots

We played some deeply haunting, sometimes haunted blues music. The other side of the same coin is Gospel music. Two collections featured were on John Fahey's REVENANT label. A Revenant is a type of ghost, a nearly forgotten ghost that has returned. An interesting and fitting name for the artists on these discs.

Whisps of a voice that lets you know that this person experienced all that was down, all that was up and it was hell getting through it. Some of these people now only exist as these forgotten voices, a name in a catalog, an impression that makes the little hair on the back of the neck stand up in attention: Geeshie Wiley, the Mississippi Moaner, and Homar Quincy Smith didn't record music to make a buck - they made their music because they didn't have the choice. Something like that just doesn't stay inside.