Spencer Bohren, a Wyoming native now based in New Orleans, has travelled all over, yet still possesses a strong sense of place. He mounted an almost never-ending tour throughout the 1980s, but did so in an Airstream trailer with his wife and kids.
In keeping, the spare and simply put Blackwater Music is a family recording in the most complete sense of the word—with Andre Bohren sitting in on drums and piano, a song co-written by Marilyn Bohren and a CD package design Django Bohren. This homey sense of vernacular makes for a welcoming embrace, in particular on a troubadour blues like “Your Home is in My Heart."
Yet when the album moves into darker themes—as with the opening “Old Louisa's Movin' On" or on “Bad Luck Bone," with its echoing portent—Bohren's lived-in authority carries a similar weight. Often accompanied by nothing more than his own Delta-infused guitar stylings, Bohren sings with a humid closeness, like an old friend sharing stories on the other end of the swing on a late-summer night.
He recalls bad times and worse, as on the post-Katrina elegy “Has Anyone Seen Mattie?," with its lonesome accompaniment from violinist Matt Rhody. He wonders what it would take to right his many wrongs, as a lapsteel curls around each carefully sung lyric, on “It's Gonna Take a Miracle." He considers salvation and what comes next on National steel-driven “Borrowed Time"—referencing, again, this shattering memory of a flooded New Orleans: “The water is rising, and the night is deep"—then lets loose another soaring lapsteel moan on “Blackwater Music." “Listen to the Wind," which closes out Blackwater Music, laments a land, and a lifestyle, lost forever by the Native Americans. Andre Bohren makes a memorable contribution, adding a thrumming drumscape that sounds like a repeated accusation.
Before long, however, Bohren is skipping along with a tube-honking quartet on “Take Me to Rampart Street," celebrating a life-saving relationship on “Your Love," then settling in for a comfy reminiscence on “The Old Homestead."
As happy as he is talented, Spencer Bohren remains that rarest of things—beyond being one of the few whites to make a life of blues picking. He is, dare we say it, well adjusted.
In keeping, the spare and simply put Blackwater Music is a family recording in the most complete sense of the word—with Andre Bohren sitting in on drums and piano, a song co-written by Marilyn Bohren and a CD package design Django Bohren. This homey sense of vernacular makes for a welcoming embrace, in particular on a troubadour blues like “Your Home is in My Heart."
Yet when the album moves into darker themes—as with the opening “Old Louisa's Movin' On" or on “Bad Luck Bone," with its echoing portent—Bohren's lived-in authority carries a similar weight. Often accompanied by nothing more than his own Delta-infused guitar stylings, Bohren sings with a humid closeness, like an old friend sharing stories on the other end of the swing on a late-summer night.
He recalls bad times and worse, as on the post-Katrina elegy “Has Anyone Seen Mattie?," with its lonesome accompaniment from violinist Matt Rhody. He wonders what it would take to right his many wrongs, as a lapsteel curls around each carefully sung lyric, on “It's Gonna Take a Miracle." He considers salvation and what comes next on National steel-driven “Borrowed Time"—referencing, again, this shattering memory of a flooded New Orleans: “The water is rising, and the night is deep"—then lets loose another soaring lapsteel moan on “Blackwater Music." “Listen to the Wind," which closes out Blackwater Music, laments a land, and a lifestyle, lost forever by the Native Americans. Andre Bohren makes a memorable contribution, adding a thrumming drumscape that sounds like a repeated accusation.
Before long, however, Bohren is skipping along with a tube-honking quartet on “Take Me to Rampart Street," celebrating a life-saving relationship on “Your Love," then settling in for a comfy reminiscence on “The Old Homestead."
As happy as he is talented, Spencer Bohren remains that rarest of things—beyond being one of the few whites to make a life of blues picking. He is, dare we say it, well adjusted.
