Alvin Youngblood Hart - big, black and brilliant

I was watching Alvin Youngblood Hart’s 1999 Later…with Jools Hollandperformance of “Illinois Blues” on a compilation programme on BBC 4 the other night, when I realised that the  LP it came from – Territory – was one of my two favourite albums of the 1990s (the other was Nick Lowe’s The Impossible Bird). 

I’d never heard of Hart before that BBC2 appearance -  99.9% of the UK population probably still hasn’t. He’s a big, black 48-year old singer, guitarist and songwriter who grew up in Oakland and spent chunks of his childhood in Carroll County, Mississippi. He does acoustic Country Blues, straight Country, electric Rock, Western Swing, 1930s pop standards, folk – well, there isn’t much he doesn’t do, to be honest. He plays acoustic guitar, electric, 12-string, banjo and mandolin (and that’s just the stuff I know about). In 1996 he released his first album, Big Mama’s Door, an acoustic set of mainly Country Blues standards featuring quite a lot of Leadbelly (“When I Was a Cowboy” and “Gallow’s Pole”). It was excellent and garnered a number of awards – but, to be honest, I’m not that big a fan of old-time Blues, so I wouldn’t have paid much attention. 1998 saw the release of Territory – and it’s a humdinger.

   
First up is the aforementioned version of the Skip James classic about a mining camp, “Illinois Blues” (see above), which is as haunting and mysterious as the original - which, I’ll admit, I hadn’t heard either at that point. The guitar – in the cover and the original - is startlingly original and stunningly beautiful (the guitar is probably open-tuned to D Minor, by the way – it’s James’s favourite tuning.) 

“Tallacatcha”, a Hart original, sounds like a Western Swing standard – Bob Wills would have been proud to have come up with it. It’s one of those numbers which leaves one smiling with delight:

“Ouachita Run” is another Hart composition, this time an instrumental which reminds me of Leo Kottke. Lovely. (He starts playing it at around 2’20”.)

“John Hardy” is an Carter Family Country original (“John Hardy was a desperate little man…”) and Hart’s version is spare and, again, haunting.  

“Sally, Queen of the Pines” sounds like another Country Blues classic – but it’s a Hart original: he has assimilated a host of musical influences to such a degree that he can sound utterly authentic in any number of formats. “Dancing with Tears in My Eyes” is an Al Dubin-penned pop standard from 1930 – Hart takes it seriously, and, as a result, it’s enchanting. His musical tastes are nothing if not ridiculously catholic. (Neither of these songs to be available on YouTube - more evidence of popular neglect - but you can hear them on Spotify.)

Six absolute classics on one album – that doesn’t happen often in my experience.

So, if Hart is so damned good, why don’t we hear more of him? I’m not sure, but, although he has released three albums since Territory, he has never quite reached those heights again. Hart has a yen to be a Rocker – and his rock stuff is frankly rather pedestrian. I’m guessing there just isn’t a big enough market for such a bizarrely eclectic mix – and even toe-tapping oldsters able to appreciate the man’s artistry might be alarmed by his “roots” appearance (the bulk and the mass of dreadlocks suggest someone who’s come to collect a debt with extreme prejudice rather than a perceptive and delicate interpreter and creator of old-timey folk, blues and country) and they won’t be reassured by his penchant for noisy electrified Southern Rock. 

This man needs a marketing make-over – and a musical focus: but I’m sure he’d hate that, and so would those of us who love his music. 

Jools Holland may be an annoying prat at times, but we owe him a debt of gratitude for showcasing great artists we might have otherwise missed (here’s Seasick Steve doing “Doghouse Boogie” to remind us of someone else we might never have heard of if it hadn’t been for Later…).