William Stout's "Legends of the Blues"

William Stout has built a formidable body of work in his 40+ year long art career, ranging from comics and album art to storyboarding and conceptual art in film and television.  In 2013, Abrams ComicArts published his "Legends of the Blues" book which builds where Robert Crumb's classic "Heroes of the Blues" trading card set from 1980 left off.  Stout renders over 100 Blues titans in his own version of Crumb's iconic, bold crosshatched style, and wrote a short biography to accompany each entry.  Oftentimes, Stout weaves in symbolic imagery in the backgrounds to enhance the individual's mythology.  It's a brilliant collection of images, and the book is a must have for any fan of illustration or the blues.

here are some examples.  buy the book HERE.

Pretty Lightning - "A Magic Lane of Light and Rain" (Cardinal Fuzz 2015)

Pretty Lightning
A Magic Lane of Light and Rain
Cardinal Fuzz Records 2015

Pretty Lightning draw their life force from the swampy drone of North Mississippi Hill Country Blues masters Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside, and filters it through a ghostly, hallucinogenic fog.  It is a limitless source of inspiration, always ripe for exploration, and the German guitar/organ/drums duo dig in and root down with the best of em.  

Pretty Lightning's sophmore album, A Magic Lane of Light and Rain, naturally builds upon the sounds of their 2012 debut, There Are Witches In The Woods, and in the process stumbles upon the common ground between Kimbrough and Krautrock.  These grooves could spiral out into infinity, but the fact that Pretty Lightning can hammer them into actual songs, with memorable hooks and melodies, is rare.  The recordings themselves are clear but raw... focused, but fuzzy in the peripheral... which should translate well to their live show.

It will be interesting to see where Pretty Lightning goes from here, as their sound deepens and congeals even more.

prettylightning.com/

Stand out tracks:  The Rainbow Machine, Bow Low, Woodlands