Nico Wayne Toussaint - With Love From Clarksdale (2024) [Official Digital Download 24/88]

Go where the action is! Memphis is in the center of the United States and at the crossroads of black American music. And Clarksdale is there, like a ghost town that has never woken up from its past, there, 60 miles further south, in the state of Mississippi, on the road to Louisiana and New Orleans. This is where I, Nico Wayne Toussaint, have chosen to live a studious, spiritual, musical retreat, during the beautiful season of the cotton harvest, when temperatures are around 30 degrees but autumn is already arriving, and as far as the eye can see the fields are white with cotton flowers. I organized my retreat in a houseboat made of sheet metal and planks, set at the edge of a farm road, in front of this opaline ocean. It was there, with my guitars and harmonicas, that I set about working in context, the repertoire of Mississippi legends: RL Burnside, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Fred Mc Dowell … And the city's clubs, like the sidewalks of New Orleans, became my playground and my public exercise place. 8 weeks at this pace allowed me to meet great people, settle into a daily routine, play a lot, write songs and find a new sound. It is all this experience that I brought back to France, and that I breathed into the rehearsal sessions for our upcoming album. The Clarksdale "juke joint" sound that I wanted to print on the record quickly required the contribution of the brass that I had also heard, between New Orleans and Memphis. That was all it took to summon the Big Band version of my group in full, that is, all the musicians with whom I had already produced the tribute to James Cotton in 2017. Our trumpeter Pascal Drapeau signed the brass arrangements and thus finished shaping the sound of this new album, composed of 100% original tracks and which aims to combine the rhythmic pulse of Mississippi clubs with the dynamics of Memphis brass riffs. "From Clarksdale With Love" is therefore this loving postcard that I send you from the land of the blues, like an invitation to wander with me on the roads of Mississippi. In the car!

Tracklist:
1 Memphis
2 Wanna try somebody
3 Valentine
4 Mr Bartender
5 Make it count
6 Annie
7 I was wrong
8 Let the boys have a go
9 Jesse James
10 Greyhound
11 Never too old
12 Every town


Thanks to the Original customer!