Robert Bennett shines on with Johnny Shines

“Too Wet to Plow” is a record out of time. It is music that sounds as though it has been carried around for countless decades inside the artist’s head, accumulating power and being gradually refined until at last it has to be released or else lost to the world forever. The result flows out with incredible ease in pristine perfection, stronger than ever. In the first few moments of listening to this, as the notes of an aching slide-guitar resound, you know that however long the music lasts not a foot will be put wrong, not a second wasted. Shines has complete control of his vision and will daze and amaze you until he feels like packing up.
This kind of magic doesn’t come easily. You can’t take lessons in it. Johnny Shines grew up around the legends of the Delta and had a lifetime of travelling and performing interspersed by long periods of frustration and resignation before, at a ripe-old-age, he was able to produce “Too Wet to Plow” in 1975. And true to the tough-shit spirit of his music, even after the release of this jewel, Shines’ talent was still overshadowed by his association with Delta-Blues superstar and endless enigma, Robert Johnson.

At the risk of perpetuating this injustice, the record can sound tantalizingly like Johnson had he lived past his twenties, matured as a musician, grown deeply reflective, and mused on his younger days. This notion is inevitable because however often the title: “Last of the Great Delta-Bluesmen” was bandied around, no-one else alive in 1975 could have brought the music forth with such stark clarity and force, free from the restraints of age and untouched by the Chicago-sound.
The themes are pure: betrayal, abandonment, murder and imprisonment. But where such lyrics would have been delivered with desperation, with a disturbingly frenetic edge, here Shines’ voice is calmly accepting and has the same sort of unmovable, deep quality that Cash has on his last records.  It is the kind of voice that makes it impossible to imagine the singer ever really being dead and makes you look forward to getting old. This is perfectly complemented by the harp of Sugar Blue which brings a high, spooky echo to the sound. A traditional song about the miseries of incarceration, “Red Sun” is an example of the flawless synchronization with which Shines, Sugar Blue and guitarist Louisiana Red play. These songs were not the product of careful rehearsal, the players were free to find their own rhythms and the results sound stripped and tough, never awkward or competitive.
The no-bullshit solidarity of musicianship shoulders Johnny’s tone which is fearless in the face of hopelessness. When his voice evokes a picture of the sun melting “these big old prison walls right down” you believe he could make it happen. In Robert Johnson’s music, as well as that of many other contemporary players, the closing in of insanity and annihilation was always near the surface: “I believe I’m sinking down.”, “If I don’t go crazy I’m sure to lose my mind.” But Johnny Shines has the sound of a great survivor. He doesn’t bargain with the Devil, he beats him. Every catastrophic scenario is held at bay with a defiance that borders on cool contempt.
“Trouble’s All I See” is the greatest song in this vein. It begins with some beautifully delicate high picking and slides into a sloping Blues with some mean, pulsing harp. We’re on an early morning saunter through the cemetery with Shines. The gravedigger tells him that his sweet woman is gone forever. Folding his arms he states: “That’s alright Mr.Gravedigger...somebody’s gonna cut a six-foot hole for you someday.” Wherever you are when you hear this song you can feel the cold air and smell the damp grave, it’s that strong.
If you have tried the old records and the world they present seemed just too far away, do yourself a huge favour and get “Too Wet to Plow”. Sit and listen to it alone with your headphones and preferably your eyes closed. Drink it all in. It will transport you to a strange, long-gone place and do you a power of good.

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