Dee Robinson – Dee from Decatur
Riverlark Music
21 Tracks – 38 minutes
Dee leaves no uncertainty about where he is from with the title of his album. But that location does not relate to the rich family history that leads to Dee’s excursion into playing music. His great grandfather, John Dotson, was born around 1890 and raised near Clarksdale. He was known to be great entertainer who could be play anything with strings on it, starting with the banjo and shifting later to the guitar. His great grandmother was born in Clarksdale in 1900 and also played guitar. They had ten children. Two great uncles, Therman and Roy Dotson, became piano players, and his great uncle Brazil was a guitarist who favored Memphis Minnie style blues. Another great-great uncle on his great-grandmother’s side. John Cook, born around the turn of the century was also a known guitarist.
Dee’s father, one of ten children, was born in New Madrid, Missouri in 1942. He played guitar, bass and piano. After shuffling around for a while, the family ended up in Decatur where Dee was born in 1975. As might be expected, he and other family members all got involved in playing music. Dee played with his cousins and other family members in family gatherings and also had the opportunity to play with his great grandfather.
With his musical background and heritage looking backwards over 100 years, Dee chose to focus his style on the music of the past and keeping alive the tradition and sounds of the early players of the blues. His focus is on the Piedmont style of picking. He studied recordings and found YouTube videos of players like Mississippi John Hurt, Etta Baker, and Elisabeth Cotten but drew a major interest in Rev. Gary Davis among many other pre- WWII blues players. For a while, Dee was the administrator of the Mississippi John Hurt Foundation Facebook page.
Dee does not sing preferring to focus on the guitar parts of the songs presented. At 21 songs in 38 minutes, the music is rapid fire and consists solely of covers of the early blues musicians. He opens with Blind Lemon Jefferson’s 1927. “One Dime Blues”. He then moves to Mississippi John Hurt’s “Monday Morning Blues”, the first of many Hurt songs on the album including “Candy Man” “Let the Mermaids Flirt with Me”, “Shake That Thing”, “Spider, Spider”, “Spike Driver Blues”, “Big Leg Blues” , “Tender Virgins” and ending the album with “First Shot Missed Him”. He also does a Mississippi John Hurt arrangement of the traditional “Stack O Lee”. Most of the songs in that list were recorded in 1928.
In between, Etta Baker is represented with “Carolina Breakdown and “Railroad Bill” and a traditional song, “Bully of the Town” which is based on a Baker arrangement. Elisabeth Cotten’s songs are “Freight Train” and “Washington Blues”. Rev. Gary Davis’ “Crucifixion”, Lead Belly’s “Good Night Irene”, Big Bill Broonzy’s “Joe Turner Blues”, a John Jackson arrangement of the traditional “Boat’s Up the River”, and the traditional “Since I Laid My Burden Down” complete the album.
Dee is certainly a talented guitarist presenting a distinctive, ringing sound in every song that captures the essence of the original performers. The album is a very pleasant listen that should appeal to any blues lover with an interest int he history of the music or those who just enjoy hearing well-played acoustic guitar.
