{"id":11829,"date":"2014-02-05T14:57:28","date_gmt":"2014-02-05T19:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=11829"},"modified":"2014-03-05T12:33:57","modified_gmt":"2014-03-05T17:33:57","slug":"leo-bud-welch-good-news-for-the-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/leo-bud-welch-good-news-for-the-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"Leo \u201cBud\u201d Welch: Good News for The Blues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Article by Rebecca Long\u00a0 –\u00a0 Photos by Lou Bopp<\/a><\/span><\/h2>\n

–<\/p>\n

\"ColumnHeaderBeckyLong_2012\"<\/a>\"web_leobudwelchcover\"<\/a>The recent revelation of an undiscovered real-deal octogenarian blues musician picking around Calhoun County, Mississippi, got almost instant national coverage. Leo \u201cBud\u201d Welch<\/strong> has released his debut album at the age of 81. The ten-track blues\/gospel LP, entitled Sabougla Voices<\/em><\/strong>, was recorded and mastered last summer by Bruce Watson<\/strong> at Dial Back Sound in Water Valley and was released January 7 of this year on Big Legal Mess<\/strong><\/a>, a subsidiary label of Fat Possum Records<\/strong><\/a>. Welch sings and plays guitar on the record, and he\u2019s backed with an all-star cast of North Mississippi musicians who let Welch and his Sabougla Voices (Martha<\/strong> and Laverne Conley<\/strong>) take the lead: Jimbo Mathus<\/strong> helps out on guitar, Bronson Tew<\/strong> on bass, Eric Carlton<\/strong> (Tri-State Coalition) on keys, Andrew Bryant<\/strong> (Water Liars) on drums and organ, and Matt Patton<\/strong> (Drive-By Truckers, The Dexateens) on bass and guitar.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"linesimple\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Last Spring, Leo \u201cBud\u201d Welch<\/strong> was asked by his now-manager and biggest fan Vencie Varnado<\/strong> to perform at his birthday party; Varnado secretly recorded the performance as Welch\u2019s demo to send to a record label. Varnado contacted Bruce Watson at Fat Possum Records, who showed immediate interest. According to Welch in a recent interview with Zach McCormick, \u201cVencie sent off the recording to Bruce, and then Bruce listened to and Bruce got it and played it to his people, and in two weeks we was in then in about two more weeks we was done recording!\u201d Welch, living in the tiny town of Bruce, Mississippi, reportedly decided to contact Fat Possum Records when he heard about the late-in-life discovery of late North Mississippi blues great Junior Kimbrough<\/strong>. Though Kimbrough was originally recorded in 1966, those tapes weren\u2019t released until 2009 (when Bruce Watson bought the masters and the song rights); seventeen short years earlier in 1992, Kimbrough gained national attention at 62 years old with All Night Long<\/em>, recorded by Robert Palmer<\/strong> for Fat Possum. Similarly, the early recordings of Mississippi John Hurt<\/strong> only reached a small audience, whereas his more popular 1964 Library of Congress recordings were taped when he was 71 years old. Even Mississippi Fred McDowell<\/strong> was only 55 years old when he was \u2018discovered\u2019 and recorded by Alan Lomax<\/strong><\/a> in 1959. Like Leo Welch, McDowell blurred the lines between Delta Blues and Hill Country Blues, and mixed gospel themes into his music, recording songs like \u201cWoke Up This Morning with My Mind on Jesus\u201d and \u201cWished I Was in Heaven Sitting Down.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"web_leobudwelch2\"<\/a>This album\u2019s release has brought up an old maxim: \u201cSaturday night is for blues, and Sunday morning is for gospel<\/span>.\u201d<\/strong><\/em> After hearing the sound Leo Welch has developed, I think we can finally throw that adage out the window \u2013 blues and gospel can live in righteous harmony (pun intended). Sabougla Voices<\/em> is a far cry from sold-my-soul-to-the-Devil blues or my-woman-done-left-me blues, but its tracks contain every sign a Blues-hound needs to tell that the music was made after spending a lot of time in Mississippi. After a recent trip home to the Delta, it\u2019s fair to say there\u2019s almost a church \u2018around every corner;\u2019 religion is so entrenched in the music and culture of this state, sometimes it\u2019s hard to keep Saturday night and Sunday morning separated. The word gospel<\/em> comes from the combination of two Old English words, and it translates as \u201cgood news.\u201d And whether or not you believe the religious message scattered throughout, Sabougla Voices<\/em> is \u2018good news\u2019 for the blues.\u00a0 Welch is singing for all our souls.<\/span><\/p>\n

The suspended droning groove of North Mississippi Hill Country Blues is absolutely present in songs like \u201cPraise His Name\u201d (the album\u2019s powerful beginning track) and \u201cTake Care of Me Lord\u201d (I call this song \u2018a Hill Country Blues prayer\u2019). The album features classic call-and-response gospel-style tunes like \u201cSomebody Touched Me\u201d and \u201cPraying Time,\u201d alongside the righteously joyous \u201cYou Can\u2019t Hurry God.\u201d Growing up in the South, one would be hard-pressed not to have heard similar versions of some of these songs. Many are traditional tunes, though Welch wrote \u201cHis Holy Name\u201d (with its driving bass line) and \u201cPraise His Name,\u201d the album-opener whose lyrics bear Welch\u2019s message: \u201cI\u2019ve come to praise His name.\u201d The unmistakable sound of electric Delta Blues prevails on \u201cA Long Journey,\u201d and the song carries a familiar mortal message: \u201cI\u2019m going on a long, long journey after a while. I\u2019m gonna lay my burdens down, goin\u2019 on home and wear my crown.\u201d This idea of the \u2018final journey\u2019 we\u2019ll all take one day is not new to the Blues \u2013 it\u2019s a very similar message to Charley Patton<\/strong>\u2019s line, \u201cWell, I\u2019m on my journey\u201d in his classic \u201cJesus Is a Dying Bed Maker,\u201d to name one example.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"web_leobudwelch1\"<\/a>Where Leo Welch\u2019s talent really shines, though, is on the slower, stripped-down tracks \u201cThe Lord Will Make a Way\u201d and \u201cMother Loves Her Children.\u201d The latter became my favorite track after the first listen; goosebumps ensue when I hear the slow, soulful refrain of \u201cA mother, she loves her children all the time. No matter what the crime, mother will always always say, \u2018That child is mine.\u2019 And your mother loves her children all the time.\u201d Welch\u2019s powerful voice shines in \u201cThe Lord Will Make a Way,\u201d just a man and his guitar. Welch has said of this track, \u201cThat\u2019s the way was I learned how to really play coming up, playing an acoustic guitar, just me and my guitar and myself and the good Lord. And that\u2019s the reason why I knew someday the Lord will make a way. He\u2019ll make a way somehow…I\u2019m glad to be here on this day.\u201d Welch started out playing when he was about thirteen, and later picked up the harmonica and fiddle. In another interview he recalls, \u201cI learned how to tune it in my own way and I called that \u2018High Tune,\u2019 after that we learned how to tune it in Spanish and everything, and I been playing ever since. One of the first songs that I ever learned to hit a note or two on was \u201cBaby Please Don\u2019t Go.”” <\/span><\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t yet read the back-story on this musical find of a man, Welch was born in 1932 in rural Sabougla (pronounced shah-boog-lah<\/em>), Mississippi. In a recent interview he said, \u201cI love living out in the country, but Sabougla wasn\u2019t nothing but a two-store spot. It\u2019s a country town. There was only two stores, wasn\u2019t even a post office there. There wasn\u2019t no law in town, it was all just country people. My home was, I call it the \u201cin the sticks, just a house in the middle of a cotton field or corn field somewhere.\u201d He later moved to Bruce and, after working during the day, if he wasn\u2019t too tired he would play at house parties, or three-day country picnics during the summer. <\/span><\/p>\n

Around 1975 he took his brand of blues into the area\u2019s churches. In the excellent liner notes for Sabougla Voices<\/em>, Kevin Nutt<\/strong> points out, \u201cThe churches offered a place where a musician like Leo Welch could still play his style, just slightly modified for the gospel. But Welch never let the blues go. He has never seen any reason to: \u201cI believe in the Lord, but the blues speaks to life, too. \u00a0Blues has a feeling just like gospel; they just don\u2019t have a book (a Bible).\u201d\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"web_leobudwelch3\"<\/a>As far as the blues\/gospel issue, Welch basically shrugs it off. Recently he was asked, \u201cDo you think playing the blues and playing gospel are all that different?\u201d and he responded, \u201cIt ain\u2019t much different. Listen, the only thing that\u2019s different in \u2018em is the words in what songs we\u2019re singing. When you\u2019re signing gospel and playing blues or singing blues, all those things almost sound alike! The music all will sound alike, you know? There isn\u2019t much difference in gospel music and blues music; it\u2019s all about the same in my book.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Clarksdale blues authority Roger Stolle<\/strong><\/a> vouches that Welch is \u201cthe first significant, real-deal, old-school Mississippi bluesman to pop up in a long time.\u201d Welch plays regularly in Clarksdale at Red\u2019s Lounge, plus at Ground Zero Blues Club, and Hambone Gallery. And this spring (probably March), Welch will be featured in the \u201cMoonshine & Mojo Hands\u201d web series (moonshineandmojohands.com<\/a>), created by Stolle and Jeff Konkel<\/strong> (of Broke & Hungry Records<\/a>), and produced by Lou Bopp<\/strong><\/a> (responsible\u00a0 for TLV #196\u2019s excellent cover photo).\u00a0 In an interview last week, Welch said that Sabougla Voices<\/em> is just the beginning, and that we can expect a Blues record next. In the meantime, though, enjoy this brand new record while it\u2019s still spinning. Don\u2019t have your copy yet? No problem: The End of All Music<\/strong><\/a> has \u2018em in stock (and your vinyl will come with a digital download card).<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Article by Rebecca Long\u00a0 –\u00a0 Photos by Lou Bopp – The recent revelation of an undiscovered real-deal octogenarian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":11930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,1595],"tags":[2718,2719,2731,548,2720,208,2730,191,2714,2734,315,515,193,948,2728,2729,474,2274,2732,2713,2721,2727,2733,1603,5,2724,2723,2722,2716,2725,2726,1615,2717,2715],"class_list":["post-11829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music-shows","category-music-review","tag-2718","tag-2719","tag-andrew-bryant","tag-big-legal-mess","tag-blm","tag-blues","tag-bronson-tew","tag-bruce-watson","tag-bud","tag-dial-back-sound","tag-end-of-all-music","tag-eric-carlton","tag-fat-possum","tag-gospel","tag-jeff-konkel","tag-jimbo","tag-jimbo-mathus","tag-junior-kimbrough","tag-laverne-conley","tag-leo","tag-lou-bopp","tag-lp","tag-martha-conley","tag-matt-patton","tag-mississippi","tag-mojo-hands","tag-moonshine","tag-roger-stolle","tag-sabougla","tag-vencie-varnado","tag-vencie-vernado","tag-vinyl","tag-voices","tag-welch"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/LeoWelchFeat.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}