Rory Block: Elder Green is Gone
[purchase]
If it wasn't for pure fidelity, subtle production dynamics, and that high, clear voice, it would be easy to imagine that this recording was older than the hills, from the early days of folk or "country" blues.
But this is no Lomax field recording. It's acoustic blues guitarist and five time WC Handy award winner Rory Block, who set out at fifteen to learn her trade from a set of dying old men, all she could track down -- Mississippi John Hurt, Reverend Gary Davis and Son House among them -- before heading out into the folk scene in the early seventies.
Block didn't really hit her stride until she was picked up by Rounder Records in 1981, who convinced her to go back to her blues roots. Her catalog after that is plentiful and stunning. This deep cut - a Charlie Patton cover - comes from Blue Horizon, her second Rounder album.