He may be one of the best kept secrets of the local blues scene, though he’s won some national recognition in the music press and made an appearance on Beale Street Caravan. It’s just that Willie Farmer doesn’t get to Memphis much. Of course, he had to come here to record his 2019 album, The Man From the Hill (Big Legal Mess), at Bruce Watson’s Delta-Sonic Sound, which made the Memphis Flyer‘s best-of list that year. But he’s too busy working as a mechanic in Mississippi to make regular trips here. That’s why the show at The Green Room at Crosstown Concourse this Thursday, June 15th, is a rare opportunity to see him live.
It was with good reason that The Man From the Hill was named one of 2019’s best LPs. As the Flyer noted at the time:
The first epiphany comes from the guitar tone. Farmer’s amp exudes a wonderful crud, a dirty squawk that seems to boil up out of the ground itself, like crude. After a few volleys on the strings to clear the air and put your mind in the zone, George Sluppick’s rock-solid drumming kicks in and we’re off, journeying through an album marked by the pitch-perfect, no-nonsense production we’ve come to expect from Big Legal Mess.
People talk about garage rock a lot (too much?) these days, but this is true garage blues. That’s not to suggest it’s especially frenetic. Rather, from the tone alone, you can feel in your bones the scene of Farmer’s auto repair shop in Duck Hill, Mississippi. And Farmer’s playing also conveys both the rough hewn strength and the sensitivity one develops from growing up on a farm.
It’s a style not often heard in these days of pop-crossover blues, made all the more powerful by Farmer’s soulful voice.
Opening the show will be two artists who’ve proven to be worthy acolytes of the blues. Shaun Marsh, a U.K. native, has mastered the finger-picking style of country and Delta blues from recordings of the forms’ early pioneers. It was that music that brought him to Memphis, where he continues to study these historical styles, with a repertoire ranging from Robert Johnson to Charley Patton, from Skip James to Big Bill Broonzy. He’ll have drummer Lynn Greer on Thursday, giving his set extra oomph.
In the night’s middle slot will be Ryan Lee Crosby from Medford, Massachusetts, who’s been turning heads for years with his blend of traditional music from Mississippi, Mali, and India, including what he calls “Hindustani slide guitar.”
As Mike Greenblatt writes in Goldmine magazine, “With a riveting singing style and the compositional chops to pull off such searing sagas ‘Institution Blues’ and ‘Down So Long’ plus add new lyrics to the 19th century ‘Was It The Devil,’ Ryan Lee is the real deal. Recorded in Memphis by Bruce Watson of Fat Possum — the label famous for RL Burnside and Junior Kimbrough — it sounds unique, proudly independent and like a relic from another time.”
