"My respect for Fruteland Jackson is very high. He and my boy Alvin (Youngblood Hart) is the future sound of true acoustic blues. And you can quote me anytime. "

- Henry "Mule" Townsend

"Fruteland is an intelligent young man, a young bluesman, good musician and good guitar player. We toured together on the road."

- David "Honeyboy" Edwards

"Fruteland has his own style.... He will be one of the great ones of our times."

- Jimmie Lee Robinson

"With [this] album, Fruteland Jackson takes his place among the new generation of African-American acoustic blues musicians breathing new life into the venerable genre."

-The Montreal Gazette, Thursday, March 2, 2000

"His contemporisation of lyrics while maintaining the musical worthiness of acoustic blues has become his trademark. . . His music is obviously engaging, supremely tailored and a fitting tribute to his mentors within the genre. . . The future of the blues!"

-Blueprint, U.K., April 2000

"Jackson has a strong virile voice and is a fine picker . . . An album of well-crafted songs . . . A hugely enjoyable CD, a sure-fire winner."

-Blues & Rhythm

"When I came to the blues, I came to work," states Fruteland Jackson, a third-generation Mississippian, born June 9, 1953, in the Delta town of Doddsville. "In my family there are preachers, teachers and nurses. Hard work and education was an important thing in my immediate family."

Fruteland has certainly picked up on the tradition. He tours the festival circuit on a steady basis, and his work with the Blues in the Schools program garnered him the 1997 W.C. Handy "Keeping the Blues Alive" Award and a reputation as a front-runner in the growing field of younger African-American artists destined to carry acoustic blues into the new century.

Fruteland's dedication to the tradition has not gone unnoticed by those who have come before him. "My respect for Fruteland Jackson is very high. He and my boy Alvin (Youngblood Hart) is the future sound of true acoustic blues. And you can quote me anytime," reports blues master Henry "Mule" Townsend, fresh from his 90th birthday celebration. Fruteland has also toured with and won the respect of his mentors David "Honeyboy" Edwards, Jimmie Lee Robinson and Homesick James.

When he made the move to Chicago with his family in 1959, Fruteland left behind his Delta childhood, but his parents' musical roots made the trip north with them. "Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Big Maybelle. When the record player came on, that's what we heard. At the time I considered that old-folks' music. As the '60s came in, I was a Motown child, listening to r&b like everybody else. But the blues seeds had been planted in me."

When asked to recall who and what brought him to the blues, he mentions his Uncle Woodrow, who gave him his first guitar when he was 12. "My Uncle Woodrow, who played piano for the church and blues guitar, that was the first time I saw a man play the guitar and sing. That made a lasting impression on me."

For a time as a child, Fruteland lived with an aunt, married to a minister, who had gospel groups over to her house to practice. "Four or five guys slappin' their thighs, Delta style, to keep the beat," Fruteland remembers.

Gathered here on his Electro-Fi debut CD is the end result of those early influences and his subsequent musical travels: 11 original songs. When asked about his songwriting, Fruteland responded, "I have to write something about something that I know something about. In my life, I didn't live during segregation; I wasn't beaten over the head with Jim Crow. I didn't have that experience, but I can talk about Vietnam and things. I think the first blues is what comes from your family and however we're made."

Regarding the wry lyrics to some of his work, Fruteland continues, "I like to have a sense of humor in the music, so people can smile when they listen to blues, and they can laugh a little bit, but deep down I consider myself a blues activist. I like books, videos, anything that draws you to the blues, because I believe that there are healing powers in this music."

Providing a capsule commentary on specific songs on this CD, Fruteland ventured, "Animals have been talking aloud and making observations since biblical times. An old man and a stray dog cross paths. They both make observations, show compassion and agree It's A Bad Night To Be A Stray Dog. The music was inspired by a railroad-man's song and a brother's love.

Again Titanic Blues rears its hauntingly legendary head in blues song. Inspired by the 1998 Oscar-winning movie, Titanic Blues details what actually happened, without the love story-an amalgamation of bottleneck slide and storytelling put to the blues.

The separation of a devoted parent from a child leaves no winners. This situation can be compounded by the delivery of simple untruths shared with the innocent. Where's My Daddy? is a legitimate question that impacts the emotions of all parties involved.

Dragon Lady Blues appears to be a direct descendant of a business relationship gone sour, what happens when you grow up and apart. This contemporary blues underlines the phrase 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.' Sometimes life's consequences are downright scary.

Being a guilty party in betrayal who got caught is Pearlie's Blues. The issue of infidelity and the price of justice are played out here. What would Skip James do? What would you do? I tip my hat to the hard-drivin', drinkin', fightin', womanizin' Delta bluesman Charley Patton and his rhythm and timing. He had his own way of breaking up the E-chord as heard here in Can't Be Yo' Man. A real stone pony.

"All blues lovers should say I'm Goin' Down To King Biscuit and then go. This is a road song, heard best on Highway 61. Alligator Blues is a real facts-of-life blues song that considers the trials and tribulations of daily life: unprovoked challenges, ignorance, naiveté and Murphy's Law. The father of Delta blues, Charley Patton, inspired this pre-millennium lament that goes out on a note of hope."

When asked about the future of the music he so clearly loves, Fruteland Jackson doesn't waste a second with his reply: "I don't see it slowing down any. It's here. It's changing. It's evolving. The newer players can't keep singing about cotton, corn and mules. They have to take on more contemporary subjects, but they can still do it from within the acoustic format. The blues are the plain and simple facts of life. I tell the young people I meet through Blues in the Schools to try the blues. This music can serve them well. If you deal with challenges, try the blues. It lets you know you are not alone, that someone has been where you're going . . . and that everything is going to be all right."

Andrew Galloway

Back to CDs