BLUE LIGHT

The late Memphis producer Jim Dickinson once called Jimbo Mathus the singing voice of Huck Finn. Outside the South, Mathus is likely best known as the ringleader of the defunct hyper-ragtime outfit Squirrel Nut Zippers, or as the catalyst for Buddy Guy's breakthrough Sweet Tea in 2001 and Guy's Grammy-winning Blues Singer album. This July, Mathus will release a six-song vinyl EP on the Big Legal Mess label titled Blue Light, which he recorded at producer Bruce Watson's Water Valley, Miss., studio, Dial Back Sound. Blue Light perfectly captures Mathus' style of Southern musical alchemy. From the proto garage rock of Haunted John (up and down Saint Charles/rides the streetcar all night long), to the sideways-with-the-law Southern rock of Blue Light to the dead-end gospel-fueled country weeper of Burn the Honky Tonk, Mathus shows the diversity of his vision. The conviction of his singing and storytelling will make you believe every word is true. I'm singing from absolute experience on this recording. Raw stories of real events, he says. In his native Mississippi, and throughout the South, Mathus is recognized as the prolific songwriter of born-in-the-bone Southern music, the torchbearer for Deep South mythology and culture. Think Delta highways, bowling-pin Budweisers and interplanetary honky-tonk for the masses. His credits include the North Mississippi Allstars' Electric Blue Watermelon, and he was Grammy-nominated as a member of Luther Dickinson & the Sons of Mudboy for the Jim Dickinson memorial album Onward and Upward. Mathus also recently joined forces with Luther and Alvin Youngblood Hart, forming the retro-roots supergroup the South Memphis String Band.