I Don't Prefer No Blues

At age 82, bluesman Leo 'Bud' Welch rocks on stage like a teenager - dancing and spinning as he beats out jagged chords and grimy solos on his pink, sparkle-covered guitar. That raw youthful energy and Welch's old-school juke-joint jones blend full-throttle in the 10 songs on 'I Don't Prefer No Blues', his second release for Fat Possum Records' subsidiary Big Legal Mess. The album is a garage-blues manifesto that weds waves of prickly six-string distortion and gutbucket drums with Welch's smoke-and- ash voice and mud-crusted guitar - and lives up to Fat Possum's history of producing edgy but deeply rooted recordings by artists like Junior Kimbrough and RL Burnside. 'I Don't Prefer No Blues' is the follow-up to last year's 'Sabougla Voices', an all-gospel disc that marked Welch's debut as both a recording artist and a songwriter. That album was heralded as a fresh breath of rust-bearing air, a throwback to an era of rural music free of from outside influences and a reminder that blues-fuelled primitivism is still personified by a handful of living Southern artists. Playing blues on stage since 'Sabougla Voices' release has proven transformative for the octogenarian resident of Bruce, Mississippi. He's toured parts of the US and Europe and played for audiences of all ages at international festivals and such prestigious events as the Americana Music Association Festival and Conference in Nashville. Big Legal Mess label owner and house producer Bruce Watson took the wheel on 'I Don't Prefer No Blues', steering Welch into genre- blending sonic and creative territory.