DIGGING DEEP
Danny Kroha mines more musical depths for his ‘Detroit Blues’
Danny Kroha’s new album is called “Detroit Blues.” But he’s quick to note that, “It’s not really a blues album.”
The title of the just-released set didn’t come out of nowhere, however.
“I took the words from a Charlie Poole song called ‘Milwaukee Blues,’” Kroha, 55, says while taking a break from refurbishing a home near Detroit’s east side. “Then I put it to the music of ‘Casey Jones,’ a version of the Furry Lewis song. Then I said, ‘Why don’t I just call it ‘Detroit Blues?’ There’s no reason to call it ‘Milwaukee Blues.’ There’s nothing about either city mentioned in the song, so I could interchange them.”
That kind of mashup is, in fact, what Kroha — a founding member of Detroit rock bands the Gories and Demolition Doll Rods — does throughout “Detroit Blues” and its 2015 predecessor, “Angels Watching Over Me,” both released by Third Man Records. “I like to take early country and early black music sources and combine them and come up with something that’s in both of those traditions,” the singer and multiinstrumentalist explains.
“I like keeping the stuff alive, in that sense, because it comes alive again when you do that kind of thing. That’s really what they were doing originally, putting different things together. It keeps it from getting stiff and stale.”
Kroha recorded “Detroit Blues” more than two years ago with Warren Defever of His Name Is Alive, and one of Third Man Mastering’s engineers. Setting up in Defever’s loft space in Detroit, Kroha “just wanted to get the sound of me sitting in a room playing and singing ... almost a field recording kind of sound.” That meant setting up a microphone and capturing his immediate, stripped-down performance, adding just a handful of overdubs for one-string washtub bass, jug bass, diddley bow and other complementary instruments.
Like “Angels Watching Over Me,” the album digs into the American roots songbook for standards such as “Oh Death,” “Poor Howard,” “Leavin’ Blues,” “House of the Rising Sun” and others. “I’m not a big record collector, but I do have a pretty big vinyl collection,” Kroha notes. “In the ’60s, a lot of that 1920s blues and country stuff that was on 78s was released on LPs, I just love those compilations because often there are liner notes and information that you can’t get anywhere else.”
The knowledge those imparted can be heard throughout “Detroit Blues.” Kroha knits elements of Booker White’s “Sad Day Blues” into his rendition of Abner Jay’s “Rich Girl, Poor Girl,” for instance. And he takes on “House of the Rising Sun” in the spirit of Dock Boggs, drawing from the Virginia native’s 1960s recordings with folk music revivalist Mike Seeger.
“It’s funny what can work together,” Kroha says. “When you sit down and do it, it all works just naturally. I think there was just kind of a common repertoire back in the early part of the 1900s, so it all fits.”
Kroha’s challenge now is promoting “Detroit Blues” without being able to play live — though he is filming performances at Third Man’s Detroit store, without an audience, which will be used online. He was part of a Demolition Doll Rods reunion album, “Into the Brave,” that came out last year, but he’s not yet sure what his next musical endeavor will be.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Kroha says. “I’m wondering if I really need to do another album like (‘Detroit Blues’) or if I need to write some songs and do those. We’ll see how this one goes. If there seems to be a demand for more of this sort of thing, I’ll do it. I’m still finding songs I like, so hopefully people will like this one and want another one.”