Josh White
had a talent for self-reinvention, and his career -- which began in the 1920s and stretched essentially uninterrupted all the way into the '60s -- is an amazing story of adaptability and survival. Slick, sly, and fiercely intelligent,
White
began as a
Piedmont blues
player, but became a sort of pre-
Harry Belafonte
black sex idol, complete with a leftist social and political agenda, during his so-called
cabaret
blues
period in the late '40s, and when the
McCarthy
era led to his blacklisting, he rebounded into the
folk revival
with several carefully assembled albums for
Jac Holzman
's newly created
Elektra
label that recast him as a
folk
balladeer. This set, originally released as an LP in 1957, was the first of those albums for
. Few performers could make the
folk-blues
straddle the line between being rustic on the one hand and artfully urbane on the other like
was able to do, and while to some extent it was a stage act, there is no doubting
's ultimate devotion to his material. The key track here is the first one, an epic 23-plus-minute version of
"John Henry"
that was the center of
's live performances during his
period and was somewhat of a signature song for him. Although some doubted
's authenticity as a
performer (they really shouldn't have), the fact remains that
was an excellent acoustic guitar player and a subtle and versatile singer who carefully selected his material, well aware of how it made him appear. Listeners should definitely check out some of
's early
Piedmont
-styled 78s from the '20s, though, like
"Blood Red River"
and
"Silicosis Is Killin' Me,"
to really hear this intelligent performer at his best. ~ Steve Leggett