At age 82, bluesman Leo “Bud” Welch rocks on stage like a teenager – dancing and spinning as he beats out jagged chords and grimy solos on his pink, sparkle-covered guitar. That raw youthful energy and Welch’s old-school juke-joint jones blend full-throttle in the 10 songs on I Don’t Prefer No Blues, his second release for Fat Possum Records’ subsidiary Big Legal Mess. The album is a garage-blues manifesto that weds waves of prickly six-string distortion and gutbucket d rums with Welch’s smoke-and-ash voice and mud-crusted guitar – and lives up to Fat Possum’s history of producing edgy but deeply rooted recordings by artists like Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside.
1. Poor Boy
2. Girl In The Holler
3. I Don't Know Her Name
4. Goin' Down Slow
5. Cadillac Baby
6. Too Much Wine
7. I Woke Up
8. So Many Turnrows
9. Pray On
10. Sweet Black Angel