Reviews for The Mississippi Sheiks Tribute Project

The idea for a concert version of the project was undertaken as a fitting gala to coincide with the closing of the Vancouver Winter Olympics, which featured over 15 guests and was, as Dawson says, an over-the-top undertaking.

This DVD was shot at the concert Black Hen Records staged in Vancouver celebrating the release of Things About Comin My Way (Black Hen 0055), their tribute album to the Mississippi Sheiks, that fabled African American string band of the 1930's. Like the album, the concert is an all-star affair, but with a twist: nobody on the DVD performs the same songs they played on the album.

The Tribute Concert to the music of The Mississippi Sheiks, now on DVD, captures some of today's most gifted players summoning up the sounds and spirit of the 1930's South. A recital by blues-folkster Jim Byrnes recounts the history of the honorees, getting the program off to an enchanting start.

Recorded in Vancouver, British Columbia, over the weekend of March 12-13, 2010, The Mississippi Sheiks Tribute Concert is a companion to Black Hen's CD Things About Comin' My Way, which I reviewed here on 24 April 2010. Tributes tend to be an iffy business, often pointless and too close to the original to be of much interest.

"Things About Comin' My Way," which revived the repertoire of The Mississippi Sheiks, was MOJO's Blues Album of The Month in March 2010, the month of this concert recording. It is billed as a companion to the CD, which is entirely fair.

As a recording act the Mississippi Sheiks, the last great African-American string band, lasted only five years, from 1930 to 1935, but they left one certifiable American classic in their wake. "Sitting on Top of the World," written by two band members, guitarist Walter Vinson and fiddler Lonnie Chatmon, has since been covered in just about every imaginable genre and arrangement.

The Mississippi Sheiks consisted mainly of the Chatmon family from Bolton, Mississippi and their brand of string band music was celebrated throughout the Delta. Their most famous alumnus was Bo Chatmon (better known as Bo Carter) who had a successful solo career as well as playing with the Sheiks.

The Mississippi Sheiks recorded country and Delta blues throughout the 30’s and were one of the top selling groups of its time.

The Mississippi Sheiks were a popular acoustic country string band who recorded 70 songs during the early part of the Great Depression. The group’s best known song, the surreal blues tune “Sitting On Top of the World”, has been covered by everyone from Howlin’ Wolf to Chet Atkins to Bob Dylan to Cream to Ray Charles to the Grateful Dead to Doc Watson and to Jack White.

The Mississippi Sheiks were only together for a short period of time in the early 1930s but the fiddle and guitar group were immensely influential on American popular culture with many musicians, such as Muddy Waters, citing their significance.

There's a lot of history behind this disc, albeit a lot of mysterious and unconfirmed mythology about the ghosts of prewar blues. Muddy Waters used to travel for miles as a young man to catch the Sheiks play. Howlin' Wolf copped his version of "Sittin' On Top of the World" from them. Their musical legacy has always been somewhat untraceable but their influence has remained.

Mike Mellor features the album and talks about each song individually. Go here (link below) to read the feature...

http://thekillingfloor.typepad.com/the-killing-floor-notes-from-the-edit...

Contrary to popular belief, the blues band was not a byproduct of the electric guitar's invention and the World War II migration of African-Americans out of the Deep South to big Northern cities where they could earn a living with music.

Seminal blues group the Mississippi Sheiks is feted in this tribute album with new recordings by John Hammond, Bruce Cockburn, Bill Frisell, Geoff Muldaur, Jim Byrnes, the North Mississippi Allstars and others. There's an earthy, down-home feel to it - gutbucket, not glitz.

This tribute album is unlike many others. Canuck musician/songwriter Steve Dawson (of Zubot and Dawson) decided to honour the music of a blues combo that only existed in the early 1930s in the Southern U.S. The 17 tracks here are well-conceived and wonderfully charming. Dawson figures on many of the tracks and his skill at guitar (especially slide guitar) is superb.

The Mississippi Sheiks were between 1930 and 1935 the top-selling band, mainly as a result of Sittin' On Top Of The World, written by two of its members (Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon), which has since turned out their most extensively-covered song (by everyone who's anyone and plenty others besides, from the worlds of blues, country and rock, from Bill Monroe to Howlin' Wolf, Doc Watson to the

For a band that has had such a unique and pivotal impact on the history of contemporary music, The Mississippi Sheiks are a little-known name.

Canadian musician, songwriter, and producer Steve Dawson aims to change that. On this album, he brings together a wide assortment of musicians to reinterpret and represent 17 tracks by this seminal string band.

Gritty,unwashed and real. The blues saved American popular music from the saccharine whitewash of the nineteen fifties. For young people growing up in the suburbs, the blues and its tales of hasty retreats out the back door, wife stealing preachers and men who solved arguments at the end of a smoking gun offered another way of seeing and experiencing life for a sheltered generation.

They're the beneficiaries of a rather unlikely tribute album and a primary inspiration and/or influence for numerous contemporary string bands, from the high-profile Carolina Chocolate Drops to Geoff Muldaur's one-off collaborators the Texas Sheiks. No doubt about it, the Mississippi Sheiks are happening these days.

In the world of jug band music, the Memphis Jug Band is to the Beatles, as, make no mistake about it, the Mississippi Sheiks are to the Rolling Stones. One of the greatest (and most popular) pre-war country blues stringbands, the Sheiks – brothers Chatmon (Sam, Lonnie and Armenter) and neighbor-fiddler Walter Vinson – recorded nearly 100 singles between 1930-1935.

The ubiquitous "tribute project" has become something of pest in the world of CD releases. For the most part, they consist of mildly interesting (at best) versions of an artists' canon of songs and usually have more to do with promoting the participating bands.

Never heard of The Mississippi Sheiks? Me neither. Turns out they influenced plenty of people you do know though, like Muddy Waters for instance, who would walk ten miles to hear them play.

Back in the early days of the blues, the Mississippi Sheiks were about the hottest thing going, riding a string of hits like "Things About Comin' My Way," "Stop and Listen," and the enduring "Sitting On Top Of The World" to fame and commercial success.

On Things About Comin' My Way, a host of talented musicians cover the songs of 1930s string band The Mississippi Sheiks, who Bob Dylan saluted on his World Gone Wrong album.

The Mississippi Sheiks consisted mainly of the Chatmon family from Bolton, Mississippi and their brand of string band music was celebrated throughout the Delta. Their most famous alumnus was Bo Chatmon (better known as Bo Carter) who had a successful solo career as well as playing with the Sheiks.

As a recording act the Mississippi Sheiks, the last great African-American string band, lasted only five years, from 1930 to 1935, but they left one certifiable American classic in their wake. "Sitting on Top of the World," written by two band members, guitarist Walter Vinson and fiddler Lonnie Chatmon, has since been covered in just about every imaginable genre and arrangement.

The ubiquitous “tribute project” has become something of pest in the world of CD releases. For the most part, they consist of mildly interesting (at best) versions of an artists’ canon of songs and usually have more to do with promoting the participating bands.

Things About Comin' My Way - A Tribute to teh Mississippi Sheiks features 17 songs originated by this short lived/ but legendary band, the mucleus of which was Lonnie Chatmon on fiddle and Walter Vinson on guitar, Bo Carter and Sam Chatmon on bass. The band took it's name from the 1921 silent film "The Sheik" starring Rudoph Valentino.

Propelled by the enormous commercial success of their second 78-rpm release in 1930, the stoic "Sitting on Top of the World," acoustic string band brothers Lonnie, Sam and Armenter Chatmon, along with guitarist/singer Walter Vinson, recorded steadily for the next five years - waxing a large body of original blues, hokum songs, square dance hollers and topical commentaries that would eventually def

Of the few African-American stringbands to record, the most successful were The Mississippi Sheiks - fiddler Lonnie Chatmon, guitarist/singer Walter Vinson and occasional colleagues. Their hits, Stop and Listen and Sitting ON Tope of the World, were among about 100 recordings.

Forgotten superstars of the 1930s whose popularity saw them eventually play for President Roosevelt, The MIssissippi Sheiks' formidable legacy is given a loving makeover by seventeen sympathetic acts on a collection that deserves to cement the Sheiks' status as an incalculable influence on the development of American music between the wars.

The sub-title of this seventeen-song tribute release is A Tribute to the Music of the Mississippi Sheiks. Named partly after the 1921 Rudo

The MS Sheiks were unique. Consisting of Sam, Lonnie and Armenter Chatmon and Walter Vinson, they were very important in the evolution of the blues. They took the music off the fields of King Cotton and into the burgeoning cities of the New South, helping turn Memphis into the music Mecca of today.

Last year, B.C. musician and producer Steve Dawson assembled Things About Comin’ My Way, a tribute CD to long-forgotten ’30s
blues outfit The Mississippi Sheiks. This year, he took the act on the road, staging all-star concerts like this Vancouver revue with VIPs such as John Hammond, Dave Alvin, Colin James and Van Dyke Parks. A perfect blend of Americana and Canadiana.

Well, this is simply a no brainer. The great tribute album of last year also had a live concert to go with it, and this is the DVD memorializing the event.

One of the highlights of 2009 was the wonderful tribute to the legendary Mississippi Sheiks, released by Black Hen Music. The CD showcased the amazing versatility of the pre-war duo by featuring a varied set of artists with backgrounds in the blues, folk, jazz, country, and rock. It was definitely a release that satisfied fans of many genres beyond the blues.

The Mississippi Sheiks was a black family group, the Chatmons, that, though nearly forgotten now, was one of the most influential musical groups America has produced. Muddy Waters was unstinting in his praise and said he'd walk 10 miles to see them play.

To me, one of the great joys about blues music is that there's always a steady stream of historians, musicologists and musicians who (at their core) are still huge fans of the music and its history.

VANCOUVER, BC – Black Hen Music announces a September 21 release date for the new DVD, The Mississippi Sheiks Tribute Concert – Live in Vancouver, featuring performances by Dave Alvin, John Hammond, Van Dyke Parks, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Geoff Muldaur, Jim Byrnes and many others. The DVD will be distributed in the U.S. by Burnside Distribution.

One of the highlights of 2009 was the wonderful tribute to the legendary Mississippi Sheiks, released by Black Hen Music. The CD showcased the amazing versatility of the pre-war duo by featuring a varied set of artists with backgrounds in the blues, folk, jazz, country, and rock. It was definitely a release that satisfied fans of many genres beyond the blues.

Let’s get the hard sell out of the way: you need this live DVD, if only for Bob Brozman’s uncanny “Church Bell Blues”. Looking like Groucho Marx being possessed by the evil spirit of Delta bluesman Son House, the California singer-guitarist lurches through a performance that’s part voodoo, part vaudeville, and wholly virtuosic.

For hardcore blues music fans, dropping the name The Mississippi Sheiks should invoke fond memories of great country blues music.

This is the distillation of two shows at the Capilano Theatre from last March, a live version of last year’s Mississippi Sheiks tribute album featuring many of the same artists. Led by Steve Dawson, whose inspired project this is, there is a stellar band backing the likes of Oh Susanna, Colin James, Geoff Muldaur, John Hammond, Dave Alvin and so many more.

Sitting at the kitchen table with his wife, Steve Dawson had an idea: why not record a tribute to '30's string band the Mississippi Sheiks? He could start with people whose albums he'd produced, like Kelly Joe Phelps, or bands he'd met at festivals, like the Carolina Chocolate Drops, before reaching out to artists he didn't know at all.

BLUES CRUISE: Van Dyke Parks joked Sunday at World Cafe Live that "it's only taken 67 years" to get him on the road.

THE MISSISSIPPI SHEIKS TRIBUTE CONCERT Live in Vancouver (Black Hen Music) **** Stars

Black Hen’s Steve Dawson has undertaken an ambitious and hugely successful project that has as its sub-title “A Tribute To The Music Of The Mississippi Sheiks”. This entertaining string band had a varying lineup but usually included Sam Chatmon, Walter Vinson, fiddler Lonnie Chatmon & third brother Bo.

Most music fans who are true music fans (knowledgeable enough to visit this sight…;) have an interest in not only the music, but in the development and history of the music they like. To those of you I have something you’ll want to check out, especially if you are into acoustic blues.

The Mississippi Sheiks were an iconic “string band” whose popularity during the mid 20s to mid 30s resulted in a plethora of fine recordings for Paramount, Okeh and Bluebird – many of which remain popular with blues artists today – one of which, “Sitting On Top Of The World”, has been recorded by artists as diverse as Howlin’ Wolf, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Cream.

If you’re a guitar player, there’s definitely some tasty licks to be copped from this DVD. The Mississippi Sheiks were a late 1920s and 1930s guitar and fiddle group based around a family named the Chatmons. The two most well-known members were Bo Carter (Armenter Chatmon) and Sam Chatmon, who also recorded on their own.

Steve Dawson produced and recorded a critically acclaimed Mississippi Sheiks tribute on CD in fall of 2009. He wanted to create a live experience in Vancouver with the same artists and over two days this past March he did two shows, the second of which resulted in this DVD. What he got was truly spectacular.

This DVD is intended as a companion to the Tribute CD, Things About Comin’ My Way, from last October. Producer/bandleader Steve Dawson assembled many of the same performers for a live concert in Vancouver this past March, who perform a completely different set of songs than is on the CD.

Steve Dawson produced and recorded a critically acclaimed Mississippi Sheiks tribute on CD in fall of 2009. He wanted to create a live experience in Vancouver with the same artists and over two days this past March he did two shows, the second of which resulted in this DVD. What he got was truly spectacular.

Muddy Waters once said he would walk ten miles to see the Chatmon brothers convene as the Mississippi Sheiks. He wasn’t kidding, either.

Muddy Waters once said he would walk ten miles to see the Chatmon brothers convene as the Mississippi Sheiks. He wasn’t kidding, either.

One of the highlights of 2009 was the wonderful tribute to the legendary Mississippi Sheiks, released by Black Hen Music. The CD showcased the amazing versatility of the pre-war duo by featuring a varied set of artists with backgrounds in the blues, folk, jazz, country, and rock. It was definitely a release that satisfied fans of many genres beyond the blues.

One of the highlights of my trip to the Blues Music Awards in May was the performance by a group of fine blues musicians who created the BMA-nominated album Things About Comin' My Way – A Tribute To The Music Of The Mississippi Sheiks.

The Mississippi Sheiks Tribute Concert-Live in Vancouver (Black Hen Music) is a wonderful DVD with a September 21 release date. You get it all, 13 songs of Mississippi Sheik's music, interviews plus backstage footage including rehearsals. The MIssissippi Sheiks were a popular and influential guitar and fiddle group that played mainly country blues of the 1930'.

I don't get to see the vast number of live blues I used to, due to the fact that our local Blues Club sold it's soul for the love of money and more mainstream pop and rock music. That however is somewhat compensated for with the many fine CD's I receive for review which I can leisurely listen to over a nice meal, beer, glass of wine, or all the above.

Van Dyke Parks joked Sunday at World Cafe Live that "it's only taken 67 years" to get him on the road. But this eccentric, Mississippi-steeped keyboard-player/singer/composer is making up for lost time with an appearance on the excellent new DVD "The Mississippi Sheiks Tribute Concert - Live in Vancouver" (Black Hen, A), which celebrates America's biggest recording act of the early 1930s.

Guitar player (and head of the Black Hen label) Steve Dawson is the mastermind behind this exquisite tribute to the Mississippi Sheiks, a family of performers who were very popular recording artists in the 1930s and '40s.

Steve Dawson fans will be getting an earful at Saturday night’s concert at Hermann’s. Not only did the Juno-winning multi-instrumentalist release two solo records last year, he also recently finished Things About Comin’ My Way: A Tribute to the Music of the Mississippi Sheiks.

Between 1930 and 1935, The Mississippi Sheiks recorded nearly a hundred singles and made a definitive mark as one of the most popular string bands ever recorded.

Hokum hasn’t had it this good in years. First was the well intentioned old hippie tribute to Yank Rachell. Then was Maria Muldaur’s trip back to the Even Dozen and early Kweskin days with an appropriate bunch of old hippies. Now comes a bunch of old and new hippies, backed by real rockers, tipping the cap to the Mississippi Sheiks in what is simply a jaw dropping, 4 ‘goddamn’!

It's hard to imagine any other record this year boasting a more impressive cast of roots music stars than this tribute to legendary bluesmen the Mississippi Sheiks.

Among a historic raft packed full of "legends", the Mississippi Sheiks are the real thing, formed in 1930 by three brothers (Sam, Lonnie, and Armenter Chatmon) and Walter Vinson. They put out almost 100 singles and became one of the most popular string bands of the time (and were probably screwed black and blue by their label, too, if tradition is any indication).

he Mississippi Sheiks recorded during the 1930s and have more than one hundred singles to their credit. Made up of three sons of an slave (Sam, Lonnie and Armenter Chatman), the band recorded broke-down country and Delta blues.

It’s gotta be cool to be the owner of a record label. Take Steve Dawson, the creative force behind Vancouver-based Black Hen Records. Dawson fell in love with the music of the Mississippi Sheiks, one of the most popular and prolific groups in the early days of recorded music.

Tribute albums have pretty much run their course. After a decade-long deluge, things settled down this century until there was barely a trickle of those well-meaning but mostly yawn-inducing collections. Then something as strong as this 17-song album of songs by the Mississippi Sheiks comes along, and lo and behold all bets are off.

If you were to eplore the most influential artists of the American roots music movement beginning in the pre-war era of the 1930's your research would certainly include The Mississippi Sheiks. The Mississippi Sheiks music remains timeless; a testament to the songwriting and arrangements of founders Lonnie, Sam and Armenter Chatmon and Walter Vinson.

In Things About Comin’ My Way, producer Steve Dawson manages to evoke the spirit of 1930s plantation-blues band of brothers The Mississippi Sheiks. Born to slaves, Sam, Lonnie and Armenter Chatmon are covered by various artists and bands influenced by their moon-howling tunes on this beautiful tribute album.

...Things About Comin' My Way-A tribute to the music of The Mississippi Sheiks (Black Hen Music) is a fantastic project to honor the early '30s super group. The Sheiks blended blues, jazz, pop and country.

Today, few recognize the name. But back in the 1920s and '30s, the Mississippi Sheiks were huge in North America.

Now Vancouver's Steve Dawson -- the Juno-winning guitarist, producer and songwriter -- has embarked on a one-man campaign to thrust the Sheiks back in the public eye.

Things About Comin' My Way, a tribute CD dedicated to 1930s band The Mississippi Sheiks, is a really fun listening experience. The idea of a compilation CD can seem risky at times because there's a great possibility for inconsistencies between contributing artists.

The group name, The Mississippi Sheiks may not be a household name, but one of their most famous songs, “Sitting On Top Of The World” was made famous by Cream on the band’s 1968 Wheels Of Fire album.

The Mississippi Sheiks recorded country and Delta blues throughout the 30’s and were one of the top selling groups of its time.

This Canadian-American venture was put together out of pocket and on a shoestring by Vancouver-based guitar wizard Steve Dawson, thanks to connections with the artists and a few investors. It was recorded mostly at three sessions in both countries, with Dawson handling the chores on his side of the border as well as playing slide guitar on several songs and contributing his own track.

Vancouver roots record producer and ace guitar player Steve Dawson first stumbled on the Mississippi Sheiks when Bob Dylan recorded a couple of their tunes on his World Gone Wrong album from 1993. From there he picked up the odd Sheiks 78 going through old record stores and garage sales. He loved them from the start.

Even the name of this group is interesting. The name the Mississippi Sheiks was coined by members of the group as a playful double meaning. Mississippi is where they came from, but in the parlance of the day, a “sheik” was a man out “lookin’ for some tush,” as ZZ Top would say.

Butt nothing. Singer and guitarist Walter Vincson once said the reason for his taking up of string-band music and abandoning the farming life was that he was “tired of smellin' mule farts.”

The Mississippi Sheiks were only together for a short period of time in the early 1930s but the fiddle and guitar group were immensely influential on American popular culture with many musicians, such as Muddy Waters, citing their significance.

Having released two albums under his name last year, Steve Dawson finds himself in the unlikely position of receiving a lot of notice for Telescope, an entirely instrumental album centred around his pedal-steel playing. With a Juno nod and a recent win at the Western Canadian Music Awards for the album, Dawson welcomes the interest, but admits to having not expected it.

The Mississippi Sheiks were a depression era blues band long forgotten by the general public. Vancouver guitarist and record producer Steve Dawson thought it was time to bring the Sheiks back to life.

Almost unknown today except to blues historians and enthusiasts, the wondrous Mississippi Sheiks were the most popular string band of the 1930s, beloved by white and black audiences well outside their Jackson, Mississippi, home base, so much so as to warrant concert jaunts up north to Chicago and New York and even a by-invitation show for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at his Warm Springs, GA

Between 1930 and 1935, Sam, Lonnie and Armenter Chatman, the three sons of slaves who along with Walter Vinson made up the core of the Mississippi Sheiks created some of the most memorable blues rants and square dance hollers ever conjured up.

"This tribute album, the brainchild of musician/producer Steve Dawson, reinterprets the Sheiks' music across a broad range of styles. And it does so in ways that make the album much more than just another soundalike ... With a roster of artists who are clearly enjoying themselves, Things About Comin' My Way offers a gold mine of music and memories."

Here's the link to Rich Kienzle's podcast from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that includes a great review of the Sheiks Tribute CD:
http://media.post-gazette.com/podcasts/20091027bye.mp3

One of the nice things about being my age is that as a young folkie, I had opportunities to see, in some cases meet, and, in a few cases, even work with, some of the legendary first generation recording artists whose music so influenced everything that came after.

They don't make ‘em like they used to.

In the world of jug band music, the Memphis Jug Band is to the Beatles, as - make no mistake about it - the Mississippi Sheiks are to the Rolling Stones. One of the greatest (and most popular) pre-war country Blues stringbands, the Sheiks - brothers Chatmon (Sam, Lonnie and Armenter) and neighbor-fiddler Walter Vinson - recorded nearly one hundred singles between 1930-1935.

This CD is a fantastic tribute to the great string band The Mississippi Sheiks. The Sheiks consisted of singer / guitarist Walter Vinson & fiddler Lonnie Chatmon. They sometimes included Lonnie’s brothers Sam & Armenter, (aka) Bo Carter. Sam was already a renowned blues & folk singer, and Bo was performing as well in those early days.

In the early 1930's, the Chatmon brothers--Sam, Lonnie, and Armenter--along with Walter Vinson, formed the Mississippi Sheiks. They recorded some one hundred singles that would establish them as one of the most popular "string bands" of all time.

If you do not know much about the Mississippi Sheiks, between 1930 and 1935 they recorded around seventy tracks. The CD, entitled "A Tribute to the Music of the Mississippi Sheiks" was recorded in essentially three big sessions, of which one comprised of a house band backing several of the artists. This process gives a more spontaneous and live feel to the material.

A Delta-area family band led by fiddler Lonnie Chatmon, the Mississippi Sheiks were stars in the '30s, with Muddy Waters recalling that he "walked 10 miles to see them play." The Sheiks had a national hit with "Sittin' on Top of the World," which became a timeless standard for blues, country and rock artists alike.

Something bad happened to me in the 70s, leaving me with negative feelings toward all things folk, bluegrass, goodtime, jug band, and, well, string band. As a result, all I know about The Chatmon brothers as The Mississippi Sheiks is a vague recollection of hearing “Sitting On Top Of The World” once or twice.

The Mississippi Sheiks were a popular African-American string band in the 1930s, recording such famous songs as “Sitting on Top of the World.” Muddy Waters used to walk ten miles to see them play, and they were a major influence on a wide range of blues and blues-rock musicians.

Do you like string band music? If so you should give a listen to Things About Comin' My Way: A Tribute to the Music of the Mississippi Sheiks recently released on the Black Hen Music label.

Between 1930 and 1935, The Mississippi Sheiks recorded nearly a hundred singles and made a definitive mark as one of the most popular string bands ever recorded.

Never heard of The Mississippi Sheiks? Me neither. Turns out they influenced plenty of people you do know though, like Muddy Waters for instance, who would walk ten miles to hear them play.

You could go your whole life and not hear the Mississippi Sheiks. But, you couldn’t go a day without hearing their influence.

Perhaps the roots tribute of the year, Steve Dawson and his spouse Alice have assembled a masterfully balanced collection of blues, folk, and unclassifiable renditions of music recorded by the Mississippi Sheiks during the early ’30s.

I’ve now been an avid music listener for more than half a century, since I was in grade school. But somehow, in all those years, I never managed to acquaint myself with the Mississippi Sheiks. Never even heard of ’em (though it turns out I’ve long had a track by them buried in my collection, on the terrific four-disc Roots ‘n’ Blues: The Retrospective).

Guitarist/singer Walter Vinson and fiddler Lonnie Chatmon, collectively known as The Mississippi Sheiks, performed from 1930-35, and were even invited to a special command performance by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Their influence has traveled through time, and the duo receives another honor on the recording Things About Comin' My Way: A Tribute to the Music of The Mississippi Sheiks.

They's a chill wind shriekin' through the graveyard. A gibbous moon hovers overhead and them fields lay dark and shadowed as the hopes of the men who coax them stubborn mules to haul the plows through them every day. In the shacks that surround them furrows they's singin' some. They got them some guitar, some fiddle, even someone blowin' tuneful through the lips of an old brown jug.

This loving tribute to the music of the legendary 1930s group The Mississippi Sheiks brings their iconic rural blues to life. Producer and roots musician Steve Dawson put together the project to honor Walter Vinson, Lonnie Chatmon and occasional member Bo Carter, as well as the 78 multigenre songs they wrote and recorded in the early ’30s.

“Sitting on Top of the World” is a song with which I had a casual acquaintanceship. That is until the year 2000, when Willie Nelson issued the CD “Milk Cow Blues” with a cover of “Sitting on Top of the World.” In the liner notes, he credits Bob Wills (of Texas Playboys fame) as the author.