Inspired by the blues rooted in Mississippi, the Piedmont, Memphis, and Chicago, Andy Cohen’s new album, Tryin’ To Get Home, is an album steeped in US heritage.
A virtuoso finger-style guitarist, Cohen grew up with numerous Dixieland Jazz records. During the 1960s folk revival, he got hooked on the music of Big Bill Broonzy and the Jim Kweskin Jug Band.
When Andy was 16, he heard South Carolina’s Rev. Gary Davis perform and the effect on him was profound… he has since devoted his life to studying, performing, and promoting traditional blues and folk music of the pre-Second World War era.
The Country Blues magazine said: “There are few people around today who had a chance to pick it all up from the old generations, get this good, and continue to cherish and preserve the old traditions.”
Cohen himself said: “Tryin’ To Get Home has been assembling itself in my head for several years. It’s a record for grownups.
“All these songs have meaning to me because they speak to what matters, righteous things big and small.
“I’m happy about how the pre-Second World War songs came out, and happy also that the ones I made up seem to fit with the older ones.
“A few songs by other folks, ones I thought were appropriate for the project, round it out. Mostly, I want to present material that I believe in, as clearly and intelligibly as I can.”
Five Cohen originals and three instrumentals sit alongside 12-finger pickin’ classics: Blind Boy Fuller’s Step It Up And Go, Charlie Patton’s Pea Vine Blues, Dave Van Ronk’s Bad Dream Blues, Sonny Terry’s One Monkey Don’t Stop The Show, Mississippi John Hurt’s Talkin’ Casey, Sidney Bechet And His New Orleans Feetwarmers’ I Ain’t Gonna Give You None Of My Jelly Roll, Blind Blake’s West Coast Blues and two Rev. Gary Davis covers, Death Don’t Have No Mercy and the album’s title track.
Liner notes include the songs origination and from whom Cohen learned it.

TRACKS:

Step It Up And Go
Pea Vine Blues
Louis Jay Meyers Memorial Stomp
Riley And Spencer
Bad Cream Blues Puttin’ That Stuff
One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show
Talkin’ Casey
Reverend Gary Rag
Bob Dylan’s Dream
Death Don’t Have No Mercy
Tryin’ To Get Home
Earwig Stomp
Time To Go
I Ain’t Gonna Give You None Of My Jelly
West Coast Blues
Planxty: Miss Joanna Swan