Blues in Britain Volume 1/issue 46
Rag Mama Rag - Shake it One More Time Rag Mama Records RAGMAO5CD Despite constant touring all over Europe Ashley and Deborah Dow, aka Rag Mama Rag, still find time to release recordings on a regular basis. As acoustic blues and roots acts go, they could rightly be described as prolific. However, this does not mean that the quality suffers - in fact the opposite applies and their albums get better all the time.
On "Shake It…..", we get approximately half of the songs written be Ashley and half covers. As I have mentioned in this magazine before, Ashley has the great ability to write new songs that sound as if they have long been part of the tradition. Fine examples here include "Travelin Hobo’s Blues and "Waiting for my girl to Call". Amongst the older songs covered are Leadbelly’s "In the Pines , Tampa Red’s "It Hurts me Too and Hank Williams "Your Cheating Heart", all of which are given the distinctive Rag Mama Rag treatment.
Ashley picks and slides his way through the album on a variety of guitars, ukuleles and mandolin, as well as providing his usual confident lead vocals. One departure is the use of electric lap slide, which neatly complements the acoustic instruments. Also, on this album, Debbie plays slightly less percussion and (luckily for us) provides more of her distinctive, sympathetic harmonica accompaniment. It is sometimes difficult to combine slide guitar with mouth harp without creating a dog’s dinner, but Rag Mama Rag get it right every time without fail.
This is another outstanding CD from the duo and comes highly recommended.
Rating 9 - Michael Prince _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Blues Matters http://www.bluesmatters.com/index.php
ISSUE 36 CD & DVD REVIEWS Rag Mama Rag - Shake it One More Time Rag Mama Records RAGMAO5CD Ashley and Debbie Dow formed Rag Mama Rag in 1991 and have toured constantly across Europe with their repertoire of 20’s and 30’s country blues. Their music is blues based but extremely varied and encompasses Mississippi blues, East Coast ragtime sounds, early white country tunes and some original compositions. Opening track ‘Travelling Hobo’s Blues is a catchy self penned number featuring fine picking and vocals from Ashley and tasty harmonica fills from Debbie. That old favourite ‘You Can’t Get The Stuff No More is enough to bring a smile to anyone’s face with lovely slide guitar and washboard adding to the mix. Leadbelly’s ‘In The Pines is a yearning atmospheric piece with fine National steel slide guitar and emotive vocals from Ashley. Unusually ‘It Hurts Me Too is turned into an uplifting ragtime sing along number which works really well. Although
their music is mostly old-timey Rag Mama Rag are not staid in their approach and ‘Let’s Get Drunk Again certainly got my toes tapping. Now I’m not a huge country fan but Hank Williams ‘Your Cheatin Heart is irresistible when given this straight acoustic treatment. ‘Beggar’s Waltz is a pretty instrumental number which features guest Chris Short on violin. Ashley and Debbie are based in France but tour regularly in U.K. and are well worth catching at one of their
gigs and I can certainly recommend this album.
