Sky Songs

A big personality in a genre full of expansive personalities, Booker T. Washington “Bukka” White was given to lengthy improvisation and tall tales. Bukka performed raw Mississippi country blues, eschewing the more polished, electric, Chicago-style blues. The seven tracks on this album were recorded by Chris Strachwitz in 1963, shortly after John Fahey’s “discovery” of Bukka. Strachwitz allowed Bukka’s spontaneous performances to continue outside the bounds of the standard 3 or 4 minutes, often extending over multiple 7-inch reels of tape. Bukka White’s muse was a creature of dirt roads and juke joints, dusty street corners and jails that felt like home; to craft a song, all he had to do was reach up and pull it out of the sky.