Moses Crouch – Earth Music
Riverlark Music – 2024
www.facebook.com/memphissippimoses
13 tracks; 40 minutes
With Earth Music (2024), Memphis blues and roots musician Moses Crouch explores Southern Black folk traditions, Georgia blues, Memphis jug music, Hill Country hypnotics, and sacred spirituals— an eclectic repertoire for the modern troubadour, rooted in America’s past. In the 13-track LP, Crouch covers songs from Blind Willie McTell, Fred McDowell, Furry Lewis, the Memphis Jug Band, and several traditional songs.
His interpretations emphasize the raw, storytelling power of the music—howling falsettos, droning grooves, and crooked song structures that resist commercial polish. Drawing inspiration from Memphis, North Mississippi, and Georgia’s Piedmont, Crouch blends field hollers, hillbilly ballads, and juke joint rhythms into a record that is at once archival and deeply personal.
The first track, “Newport News Blues”, was first recorded by the Memphis Jug Band in 1927 and describes the agony of unrequited love. Crouch pounds out a solid rhythm on acoustic guitar, with a stripped-down, simple, and effective sound. His voice emerges straining, authentic, and somehow sweet as he croons, “I’m going to Newport News. The woman that I’m loving do not care for me.”
Crouch accompanies himself on guitar or banjo on every song. “Rabbit on a Log”, one of the three banjo songs on the album, is one of the oldest and most prolifically covered Black Folk songs. In his version, inspired by Sid Hemphill, Lonzie Thomas, and the Mississippi Sheiks, Crouch plays funky, strong banjo, with catchy riffs, singing “Well I’m going across the water, I’m going to miss a rich man’s daughter… Whiskey on my belly and the sheriff on my track.”
A bluesy, funky slide guitar intro opens up Crouch’s interpretation of the popular tune “Good Mornin’ Little Schoolgirl”, and the rhythm and melody is provided by driving electric guitar and Crouch’s moaning, growling voice. Sonically, the space is adequately filled, creating a spicy, simmering, slow-burning track without the need for additional accompaniment.
Among the more country-leaning tunes, “Banjo Blues” was recorded in 1927 by Georgia bluesman Peg Leg Howell, accompanied by the Black fiddler Eddie Anthony, an example of Black banjo and fiddle tunes that predated the blues. Moses said in the liner notes, “It’s as Country as one can get, but still uniquely and beautifully Black.” Synchopated guitar opens the track, reminiscent of some tracks on Taj Mahal’s De Ole Folks at Home (1969), and Crouch sings “I’ve got the banjo blues but I’m too damn to cry.” Solid rhythm, in vocals and guitar, drives the song along.
The traditional Black religious tune “Get Right Church”, popular in both the North and South before World War I, receives a fresh, gritty interpretation by Crouch. Crouch said he was inspired by Mississippi Fred and Annie Lee McDowell’s version, “as primal and simple as necessary in order to deliver the powerful message.” Gnarly slide guitar opens the track, and Crouch reflects on death and religion in the simmering, fiery track, singing of hearing “that church bell toll” and being laid down on “the cooling board.”
On “Old Devil”, Crouch covers a song first written and recorded by Bo Carter of the Mississippi Sheiks, and said the song is one of the earliest recorded examples of what would become known as Hill Country Blues – “rhythmic first, focusing on a droning one-chord verse structure culminating in a crooked and unrestrained resolution. This is not 12-bar blues.” Crouch plays upbeat acoustic guitar, singing “I need my baby before I lose my natural mind and I go stone blind.” The song is simple, soulful, and powerful, in the Hill Country tradition.
Crouch closes the album with “Falling Down Blues/ Good Mornin’ Judge”, a medley by Memphis blues icon Furry Lewis, who Crouch called a master storyteller. With low-key, pretty guitar, Crouch sings “Got the blues so bad it hurt my feet to walk” in a lush, spirited voice. In his quiet tone, he expresses the pain of several themes and stories: being falsely arrested for murder, searching for a woman on the road, and saving a man from the penitentiary.
One of the best tracks on the album, “Soon One Mornin’ (Death Come A’Creepin’)”, a sacred Black standard recorded by Mississippi Fred McDowell, intermingles “both God and the Devil’s music with the same tenacity and verve” according to Crouch. Ultimately, the track is about the catharsis in surrendering to a higher power for salvation. Musically, the guitar rhythm is soulful and patient. The guitar meanders soulfully in an agonizing, painful guitar solo, reflecting the inevitability and pain of death.
Rattling, shaking slide guitar characterizes Crouch’s cover of “No-No Blues”, a Georgia blues standard, covered by the likes of Curley Weaver and Barbecue Bob, defined by a “guttural howling falsetto, and an idiosyncratic driving slide guitar.” The guitar dominates the recording as Crouch calls out “I woke up this morning, my good gal was gone.. I’m a motherless child, know right from wrong.”
Earth Music is Crouch’s love letter to the deep roots of American music—songs forged in fields, juke joints, churches, and back porches. It’s music meant to be felt in the bones: raw, unpolished, and deeply human. It breathes new life into century-old songs with grit, soul, and reverence. The album is a rich offering for fans of blues, folk, country, and Black string-band music—timeless stories told with raw authenticity.
