Basse-Moûse Blues

This first CD was named from a song entitled “Basse-Moûse Blues” that we recorded some years before with my brothers-in-law Jean-Marie Piette on drums, Bruno Piette on guitar, Marc “Pinpin” Maron on bass and the “Gros Louis” on extra-vocals. On “The Twelves”, Christoph Foulon, who played with Henk Van der Sypt’s “Last Call”, one of the main groups of the “Antwerp Crossroads Connection”, did a splendid job on piano. “The Twelves”, a traditional song also called “The Dirty Dozens”, “is a game of trading insult wordplay, sometimes in rhymes, sometimes it doesn’t, which often involves talking about your opponent’s mama” (see Elijah Wald, The Dozens: A History of Rap’s Mama, Oxford Univ. Press, 2014). Sarah Taillard, who sings Memphis Minnie’s songs, remains for me the best female blues singer in Belgium, in the old true style (not Janis Joplin…). My son used, in some mandolin way, a small acoustic Framus (around 1960, n° 53520) on the Memphis Jug Band “Sometimes I Think I Love You”. Mark T, who played harp, and Willie Maze drums, on “If I Had Religion”, were recorded at The Groove studio near Antwerp. The fax (see n° 11) was at the time the most modern way of communicating… that I knew.

TRACKS
1. Sometimes I Think I Love You (2:21)
2. Feather Bed (2:23)
3. The Twelves (3:14)
4. New Sylvester and His Mule (4:50)
5. Bukka’s Jitterbug Blues (3:29)
6. If I Had Religion (2:52)
7. Broke and Hungry (2:20)
8. I’m Talking About You, Pt. 2 (2:14)
9. Back Step Blues (3:00)
10. Sun Going Down (3:18)
11. Evening Fax Blues (3:14)
12. I’m Talking About You, Pt. 1 (2:11)
13. Tricks Ain’t Walking No More (3:12)
14. In My Girlish Days (2:11)
15. Fleetw. Mac’s Ramblin’ Pony (3:06)
16. Warm It up to Me (2:19)
17. Hiding on Me (2:46)

MUSICIANS
Elmore D.: vocals, National Triolian.
Sarah Taillard: vocals on tr. 8, 12-14, 16.
Gilles D.: Framus Piccolo and electric guitars on tr. 1, 6, 8 and 12.
Renaud Lesire: harp on tr. 1,2, 11-13, 15.
Christophe Foulon: piano on tr. 4 and 14.
Didier Heggerick: tuba on tr. 8.
Big Dave: harp on tr. 9 and 10.
Mark T.: kazoo, washboard on tr. 5, harp on tr. 6.
Jacky Lauzzana: chair on tr. 2.
Will Maze: drums on tr. 6, 8 and 16.