72-year-old uncanny bluesman Jimmy “Duck” Holmes’ new album, the Dan Auerbach produced Cypress Grove, captures the raw, explosive sound of real Mississippi Juke-Joint Blues today.
Cypress Grove is an aural postcard of a typical Saturday night at Holmes’ Blue Front Café, America’s longest operating juke joint. The album is anchored by tradition - which is natural, since Holmes is the last of the original torchbearers of the rural style known as Bentonia blues - but it’s also explosive, raw, and unpredictably in the moment. Featuring an all-star cast of session players including Auerbach, Marcus King, Eric Deaton and Sam Bacco, as well as Holmes’ repertoire of songs spanning nearly a century, the adventurous 11-song set is an untamed bridge between the present and the classic sounds of the Delta.