"The CD booklet for
Catfish Keith's latest release, Put on a Buzz,
contains a photo of three National and two Flammang guitars,
instruments that shaped the exquisite and enchanting sounds on his 14th
album. Of course, a guitar is only a stringed intermediary; proficient
musicians like Keith turn these silent objects into demanding, crying,
chanting, soothing musical voices. In his expert hands, the guitars on Put on a Buzz
ring, chime, buzz, and drone, capturing the beauty, immediacy, and
emotional resonance of the acoustic blues tradition. Listeners who
need further proof only need to revel in the 12-string beauty of Grasshoppers in My Pillow,
marvel at the slide solos in Hawaiian
Cowboy, or dance to Paying
for It Now.Recorded by Luke Tweedy, and produced by Keith and Penny Cahill (who is his wife, manager, and President of Fish Tail Records), the CD features Keith in solo performance, occasionally using his feet as a percussive instrument. Put on a Buzz contains five Keith originals and nine covers, ranging from well-known sources Bukka White and Leadbelly, to more obscure artists, including Ernest Rogers and Frank Stokes. Attesting to the CD's consistency, listeners will barely notice when Keith introduces one of his original songs. No surprise here considering Keith's approach to composition: "When I write songs, it is often inspired by an old song that will get on my mind. It then sparks some ideas, and within a few minutes, I have a song." Charley Patton inspired Xima Jo Road, a song Keith wrote in Mexico; the Carter Family influenced the foot stomping, fingerpicking wonder Sigh of the Whippoorwill.
Beyond the stunning guitar work, Keith's voice compliments the CD's earthbound sound and the biting and occasionally hilarious lyrical themes. On Leadbelly's lonesome lament, Grasshoppers in My Pillow, Keith sounds like Tom Waits as he growls about romantic injustice and impending death. Paying for It Now finds Keith switching from a quick, stuttering confession of his sins to a slower delivery, upon the sober realization of his fate. His voice cracks and breaks in all the right places on Aberdeen, Mississippi Blues and on the title song. On Jazz Gillum's Reefer Head, Keith talks through a tale of an unreliable, marijuana-challenged woman who wastes her days sleeping late and threatening her lover with desertion. On Lost Lover Blues, He Rose from The Dead, and Willie The Chimney Sweeper, he overdubs his voice, harmonizing with himself, a first for Keith and a highly successful vocal experiment. Keeping with the blues tradition, Keith sings about love and death, desire and destitiution, the sacred and secular. Despite the obvious blues influences, his voice and message never seem contrived, forced, or affected - just one man singing from the inside out.
But it's the guitar genius that elevates Put on a Buzz to an entirely different listening experience. Ears will be "buzzing" with intoxicating sounds; blues fans new to Keith will be converted. I was. Before writing this review, I had never listened to Catfish Keith, scarcely heard of him. Now I am a fan."