A couple of months ago I told y’all about this EP that vintage bluesman Boo Boo Davis put out with ElectroBluesSociety sensibly titled Chicago Blues Covers. This makeshift trio (Davis, guitarist Jan Mittendorp and drummer Jasper Mortier) made a mess of covers of electric blues standards charged by the retro-modern studio finagling of the ElectroBluesSociety and the sheer aura of one Boo Boo Davis. And they laid down the tracks for these songs all in one afternoon in 2018.
Now we learn that their label KuvVer Records has dropped another track from apparently that same session, Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killing Floor.”
Boo Boo’s rendition carries the same machismo as Wolf’s but aside from that, it sounds almost like a wholly different song. If anything, the analog-y, reverb-drenched sonics of this two year-old recording sounds even more ancient than the fifty-six year-old original and Mortier keeps the song lively with a booming backbeat. Davis voice echoes from the bottom his soul but his blues harp shouts louder and authoritatively.
Even if you’ve heard this song a thousand times before, your experience with it isn’t complete without hearing ElectroBluesSociety and Boo Boo Davis tackle it. They give old blues back its youthful vitality because they know how to make it brash and raw.
Snag a download or stream of “Killing Floor” from iTunes, Spotify or Deezer.
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