Eddie Bo & Chris Barber

The 1991 Sea-Saint Sessions

The NOLA funk UK blues communion on previously unissued recording.

In 1954, Chris Barber released his debut album, New Orleans Joys. Thirty-seven years later, while he was there working for a month with Dr. John, the British jazz-blues pioneer paid tribute to the Crescent City again, hooking up with pianist Eddie Bo over two days to cut nine tracks in Marshall Sehorn and Allen Toussaint’s Sea-Saint studio. With Barber also producing and a backing band featuring guitarist Wayne Bennett and tuba and string bass player Walter Payton, they are convivial on Bo classics Tell It Like It Is, Every Dog Has Its Day and Check Your Bucket, summoning the carnivalesque good times of Mardi Gras. Things get more serious, however, on Wake Up, which opens and closes the nine tracks here, as Bo, over a rolling groove, chants: “Who is the one to right this wrong? Wake up and bring power to the people!”