Jeff Norwood
Awendaw
(Awendaw Green)
"Black Dark"
From the crickets that harmonize with Jeff Norwood on "Horny Road"
(recorded from the Awendaw Green studio's porch) to the backwoods
throw-down described in "Bad Ass Boogie," Awendaw sounds
appropriately like the place it came from. In this stripped-down solo
release, Norwood is equally authentic in his Delta-style delivery of
the blues. Over raw, repetitive slide licks, Norwood paints the images
of his own wandering and soul-searching, and the scenes, happy and
forlorn, that he witnesses along the way. "See the town shut down/When
the mill left town/Ain't gonna find mom and pop anywhere left around,"
he sings in "Black Dark." "The Devil" opens with a dirty slide-laden
warning about Norwood's own struggle with "evil running through my
veins." "Horny Road" and "Shake" are both clever pleas toward women,
before "Save My Wicked Soul," a concise and rocking gospel tune, closes
the album on an uplifting note. Norwood's genuine in his take on the
blues, melding the best of life's lows and highs into both his words
and finger work. (www.myspace.com/jeffnorwoodblues) —Stratton Lawrence
Norwood performs at the soon-to-be-open Fiery Ron's Home Team BBQ on Sullivan's Island on Fri. May 15.New Albums from Jeff Norwood, Whisperjets and Tex