Giles Oakley writes: I first saw Mose Allison at the Ricky-Tick club in Windsor in 1965, at a time when many of the African American blues giants, such as Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and Sonny Boy Williamson, were making such a huge impact.
Mose was very different, almost disappearing modestly into the nightclub gloom, but instantly quietening down the raucous good-time crowd with his bouncy piano trio music and laconic, dry delivery on songs such as Parchman Farm. He showed the mods and ravers that there was another register to the blues, no less authentic for being sung by a white man. He scrupulously credited the black composers of songs he covered, and I came to love his version of a Mercy Dee Walton classic, One Room Country Shack.
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