Eric Bibb

Eric Bibb – Dear America (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · January 13, 2023 · Comments off

The scion of a musical dynasty (his father was folk-singer Leon Bibb and his uncle was jazzman John Lewis), Eric Bibb released his first album almost 50 years ago. He grew up in the blues, but he has long been much, much more than simply a bluesman. He has travelled and lived extensively outside the United States, sought inspiration in African music, and refined his technique through contact with other styles and musicians. Dear America, released in the year of his 70th birthday, is a kind of return to his roots. This is a historian’s album, which visits some tragic pages of Afro-American history in song. Musically, this is a record rooted in blues, soul and gospel choirs. These are genres so old and well-worn that one wonders how musicians can still draw life from them without falling into clich’es. But Eric Bibb succeeds, and with young-at-heart verve, he transforms this return to the roots into an elixir of youth. He does not handle this old music like an antiques dealer, but like a craftsman or a sculptor who is perpetually dazzled by the forms that emerge from the raw material. The picking is soft, the tempo laid-back, and all the tracks here are bathed in a sober elegance. He moves from blues to acoustic soul or folk with a unique fluidity that he shares with his musicians, including drummer Steve Jordan, bassist Ron Carter, guitarist Eric Gales, singers Shaneeka Simon and Lisa Mills. This is an album of American music by a zen master of the form. – St’ephane Deschamps

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Eric Bibb – Blues People (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · January 13, 2023 · Comments off

Eric Bibb’s new album is both a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and a homage to the original “blues people,” the Afro-American creators of a style celebrated today as part of the common heritage of mankind. “Blues People” is an album voluntarily bare, haunted by the spirit of the blues. Many good friends managed to join the recording sessions and brought their own contributions. They include The Blind Boys Of Alabama, Taj Mahal, J.J. Milteau, Popa Chubby, Ruthie Foster, Harrison Kennedy, Leyla McCalla, André De Lange and Guy Davis.

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Eric & Ulrika Bibb – Pray Sing Love (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · January 13, 2023 · Comments off

Like Josh White, Jr. son of folksinger Josh White singer, songwriter, and guitarist Eric Bibb was raised in the folk tradition, the son of folksinger Leon Bibb. Bibb’s uncle was the world-famous jazz pianist and composer John Lewis, part of the Modern Jazz Quartet. Bibb was raised in a music-filled household, and family friends in the ’50s and ’60s included Pete Seeger, Odetta, Bob Dylan, and the late Paul Robeson, who was named Eric’s godfather. Dixiefrog Records presents new album Eric & Ulrika Bibb – Pray Sing Love.

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Eric Bibb – A Ship Called Love (2005/2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · September 27, 2022 · Comments off

Eric Bibb has been generally categorized as an acoustic blues player, but like Keb’ Mo’, the contemporary artist he most resembles, Bibb actually only uses blues forms on occasion, and it no doubt helps to get the listener in the door, but what is really on display here is a smooth-as-velvet singer/songwriter. It’s curious that he dedicates A Ship Called Love to the great Curtis Mayfield, because Bibb is really much closer to Mayfield in tone and approach than he is to a Blind Lemon Jefferson, say, and the title cut here, which leads off the album, owes more than a little to Mayfield’s faux gospel classic “People Get Ready.” It also gets things underway nicely here, but as love song after gentle love song rolls by, all meticulously arranged, recorded, and sung with perfectly nuanced emotional presence, A Ship Called Love begins to drift from shore in its own studied smoothness. Not that there aren’t high points, like the autobiographical “Troubadour,” a fine duet with Ruthie Foster that arrives at about midpoint in the set, and the engaging, gentle reggae lilt of “Turning World,” but by the time Bibb gets around to actually playing a blues, the micro-analytic “More o’ That,” it seems downright radical after so much gentle elegance. The closer, “Praise ‘n’ Thanksgiving,” flirts with folk-gospel, and is so grateful and reverent that it is impossible to resist, even as one wishes that a little of that reverence had been replaced with pure, wild joy. That, in the end, is what this album needs to make it more than a pleasant rumination on the sea of love. It needs a touch of wildness to temper the calm surface of these songs, because love, more so than all the other emotions, benefits from occasional changes in wind direction.

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Eric Bibb – A Ship Called Love (2006/2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · August 28, 2022 · Comments off

Guitarist Eric Bibb has spent more than three decades developing a reputation as one of the finest folk-blues balladeers of his generation. In that time, he has inspired audiences and listeners on either side of the Atlantic with music that is more than just entertainment. Amid the compelling melodies, masterful acoustic guitar work and stirring lyrics is an unmistakably spiritual element that enriches the lives of every person Bibb’s music touches. Over the years, Bibb’s multi-faceted career has taken him from his native New York City to various European locales, he is currently living in the UK, and this has instilled in him a decidedly global view of the human condition with all of its joys and sorrows. Steeped in various shades of blues, folk, gospel and reggae, ‘A Ship Called Love’ is a reflective fourteen-song set that reaches out across boundaries with simple yet straightforward messages of love, unity and peace.

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Eric Bibb – Field Recordings (2008/2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · July 28, 2022 · Comments off

Eric Bibb is one gifted blues guitar (opens in new tab) player. His style is rooted in folk, in the Delta, and animated by the acoustic guitar’s natural resonance. In his hands, the guitar can sit down low and earthy, Bibb plucking with his thumb as though fishing for bass notes in the mud, or it can be bright and lyrical, harmonics popping off the ‘board, but it’s almost always got a sense of forward motion, a groove to suit all tempos.

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