Nothing in Rambling – Live at Bush Hall
Self Release – 2024
8 tracks; 29 minutes
Live at Bush Hall (2024), Sister Suzie and Andy Twyman’s debut together, delivers a high spirited performance reflecting a genuine love and appreciation for early Delta Blues music. The duo take strength and pride in their simplicity, relying on Suzie’s soulful, deep ranging vocals, and Twyman’s core guitar work and vocal accompaniment.
As the liner notes aptly describe, it was a “special night” at Bush Hall in London, during the April 20, live recorded show – with “the warmth of the crowd” and the “spirit of the early blues singers in the air.”
Above all, the show served as a love testament to the music of Lizzie Douglas, better known by her stage name Memphis Minnie. Five of the eight tracks performed were written by Douglas.
“Nothing in Rambling” opens up the album with a low key delta blues guitar strum as Suzie sings “Everywhere I been, the people’s all the same. There ain’t nothing in rambling.” Beautiful acoustic guitar with solid rhythm back up a world weary image, describing traversing the globe and being shot at by police. Suzie’s voice is soft and smooth, but powerful, while Twyman’s guitar-playing is skillful, confident, and unpretentious.
Sister Suzie choose several songs that highlighted Memphis Minnie’s role as an early feminist icon. Introducing Minnie’s song “Keep on Going”, Suzie proudly shares that it is a “sexual liberation song” Twyman delivers floral, cyclical guitar playing, with excellent, skillful solos in the middle. The track manages to be high energy, yet peaceful. Suzie croons “You keep on going, honey til I change my mind… When I had you baby, you know you wouldn’t treat me right. Now you keep on going til I change my mind.”
“Kissing in the Dark”, another Douglas tune describes “kissing in the dark, baby that’s my birth mark”, with snappy, confident vocals. The guitar comes out free-flowing, loose, but crisp – not unlike a seductive romantic partner. The woman in the song calls for her lover to “come kiss me in the dark. Baby, be my birth mark”, with a birth mark being an innuendo for an STI.
Sister Suzie’s voice rings out as an unadorned acapella in the group’s cover of Blind Willie Johnson’s “Soul of a Man”. Her vocals wash over the listener raw, naked, and soulful, like the voice of body in anguish, looking for the answers to the questions of the soul. A simple percussive beat threads the song, like a heart beat, while Suzie cries out “Won’t somebody tell me? Answer if you can. Won’t somebody tell me what is the soul of a man?” A guttural, spiritual, tour de fource, this track is entrancing and irresistible. It is both probing and vulnerable- one of the best tracks on the LP.
Twyman joins Suzie for vocal harmony on “12 Gates to the City”, bearing a moody acoustic blues guitar intro on the Reverend Gary Davis original. The track drifts towards country and Americana as Twyman and Suzie sing of a beautiful, heavenly city, and Twyamn plays recursive, twangy guitar.
Twyman’s virtuosity on guitar shines across on “Stranger Blues”, a track that kicks off with deep, low-tone, resonating guitar notes and a funky blues beat. Suzie sings “I just rolled in your town. I am a stranger here… everyone dogs me around” and Twyman provides gnarly solos in the middle, his fingers dancing along the fretboard, creating a wild, bluesy atmosphere.
If Nothing in Rambling can be faulted, it is for their ambition to directly recreate the legendary blues singers like Memphis Minnie, Reverend Gary Davis, and Blind Willie Johnson. To learn and grow into their full potential, the band needs to begin infusing their live shows with more original material and their unique style. Clearly they have the passion to rejuvenate and breathe life into the early blues, and this is a respectable performance.
Fans of early Delta blues and specifically Memphis Minnie will find a refreshing and tasteful take of the old music.
On “Me and My Chauffer”, another Douglas number, Suzie’s voice reverberates with charm and soul as she sings “I can’t turn him down” and Twyman plays simple, deliberate guitar.
Haunting, delicate guitar opens up “Girlish Days”, a track about hitting the road as a 17 year old girl ; about a carefree lifestyle full of mistakes. Emotion and tension travel through Suzie’s voice as she croons “My head traveled before I get wise… I still got my girlish ways.”
In sum, Nothing in Rambling deliver a sentimental, powerful tribute to Memphis Minnie and the Delta blues. The album captures a special feeling on a special night.
