The Comedy of Errors: The Gibson Bros. - Old Devil (12 June 1992)

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NOTE - The video features both sides of The Gibson Bros. My Huckleberry Friend single. Go to 2:45  to get straight to their version of Old Devil.

Listening to Don Howland sing Old Devil, I found one of popular music’s perennial questions running through my mind: Can White Men Play (or Sing) the Blues?  To which my answer would be, yes they can, if only they didn’t make such a big show of singing them.  Because when white musicians sing blues songs, affectation rules.  They are the musical equivalent of British people ordering a meal in an Italian restaurant or Steve McClaren doing an interview with Dutch television.  It’s incredible that audiences listen with a straight face to it, but I suppose it’s because very few of us were genuinely Born With The Blues, so reproductions are as good as we can aspire to.  If you can’t be pure, then at least be sincere.  Out of that sincerity, it may be possible to create magic.

The Gibson Bros. provided me with one of this blog’s great earworms several years’ ago with the “Lordy lord” refrain that ran throughout their relentlessly chugging Broke Down Engine.  This cover of Bo Carter’s 1938 song is essentially a solo turn from Howland as he runs through a litany of problems including fish theft and domestic abuse.  Throughout the track he vocally gurns in a way that makes it feel like he’s trying to summon up the blues from the very depths of his gut.  Compare his performance to Carter’s effortless original and it seems to bear out the belief that the blues are both a state of mind and pure distilled pain.  Only by sharing the misery can these poor put-upon folks make themselves feel better.  In keeping with the best white blues singers/bands, the Gibson Bros.’ success comes from the fact that they bring fresh elements of themselves to what they do.  The vocals are contorted blues croon, but blended with the almost Appalachian country playing and production which makes the guitar/banjo sound like it’s being played by the Devil, all the way down in Hell, as a soundtrack to the parade of petty and nasty acts on the surface, it comes together to create something which could sound laughable, but ends up rather compelling.  Somewhere in Detroit, Jack White, was taking notes...



Videos courtesy of Ecilliterate (Gibson Bros.) and randomandrare (Carter)