Consumer Guide Album

Rory Block: Heavy on the Blues [M.C., 2025]
Born in Princeton in 1949 and raised by the proprietors of a Greenwich Village sandal shop, Block has released some 40 albums of blues covers and originals—albums I'd never noticed, initially on Rounder but also on the likes of Chrysalis and Rykodisc, clearly an oversight though 40 was probably too many. Although the detailed booklet stresses Block's lifelong passion for a panoply of blues titans, these vary from Charley Patton and Memphis Minnie to such newbies as Buddy Guy, Tommy Tucker, even—idiosyncratically post-blues though he was—Jimi Hendrix. There's not as much grit as you'd figure here; occasionally the tone even verges on perky. But for just these reasons this selection has a winning spring and originality to it, and I expect to play it some more and to delve into her catalogue a little. An obsessive she may be; a purist she's not. A−