Track Listing

1. Broke and Ain't Got a Dime
2. Black Rat Swing
3. Blues All Around My Bed
4. Fool Me Good
5. Precious Bryant Staggerin' Blues
6. Don't Let the Devil Ride
7. You Don't Want Me No More
8. Don't Mess Up a Good Thing
9. Don't You Wanna Jump
10. Wadn't I Scared
11. Fever
12. Ups and Downs
13. Peepin' Out My Window
14. When the Saints Go Marching In
15. Georgia Buck

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #100531 in Music
• Released on: 2002-01-22
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .16 pounds

Amazon.com
There's nothing precious about this Georgia blueswoman except her name. Bryant's first all-solo album is packed with stomping blues and spirituals built on her own fusion of fingerpicking, one-chord boogie, Piedmont-style strumming, and African American fife-and-drum-band rhythms. She puts all that in the service of a dry-but-mellow voice that dances up into its thin high register to enhance the joy in her percolating melodies. She's happiest when singing the Lord's praises in "When the Saints Go Marching In" and "Don't Let the Devil Ride," but the graceful ragtime instrumental "Georgia Buck" is equally blithe. And her blues, including "Broke and Ain't Got a Dime" and "Black Rat Swing," are full of sassy energy. The heavy beat she pulls out of her Gibson electric on "Don't You Wanna Jump" sounds straight from Mississippi, splitting the difference between John Lee Hooker and Jessie Mae Hemphill. But what's truly amazing about this album, produced by North Mississippi Allstars road manager Amos Harvey, is that although Bryant is only 60, it sounds as if her repertoire and delivery have been completely unaffected by the past half-century. This is the real country blues. --Ted Drozdowski

Customer Reviews

Probably the best rural blues CD of 2002
If this doesn't win all kinds of blues awards, I want to know why.

Precious Bryant is the genuine article; she lives in a trailer in Georgia, and this CD was recorded in the living room of a friend's house. Nothing but her voice and her guitar.

That's all there needs to be. Precious is a dynamic, adept guitarist; she sounds like two players all by herself. Her fingerpicking is precise and funky and motivates right along. It's probably some of the sharpest solo blues playing I've heard in a while.

Her voice is as good as her guitar playing. She has a conversational, sly delivery, and even on the more "down" numbers it seems there must be a grin and a wink behind it all.

This is happy blues from a woman who is completely disinterested in commerciality. The whole recording has an "out on my front porch with a little glass of whiskey" feel. Precious Bryant just wants to have a good time playing music and make sure you have a good time listening to it. She succeeds.

I would recommend this recording to absolutely everybody. The only people who wouldn't like this CD would be people who would be too crabby and mean to enjoy it anyway, and who cares what they think? You, on the other hand, need some Precious in your life.

So good, it brings tears to your eyes
In a society of plasticity and artificial celebrities, Precious Bryant's performance is a bright beacon that reminds you there is still good in the world. Ranks with the "O Brother Where Art Thou" album on the foot-stomp-o-meter.

I was first exposed to Ms. Bryant's music listening to NPR, and, just as when I listened to my first B. B. King record, it brought tears to my eyes. It's that good. The vocals are clean and beautiful, the guitar sounds like it's in the hands of one of the blues masters, as it is.

Ms. Bryant, please keep making records, don't keep that all to yourself. Like the Skynyrd boys sang, I'm getting up early in the morning to get myself some bottles and run 'em down to the country store to get some pennies to buy the next Precious Bryant album.

Doesn't get any better
I bought this as soon as possible after hearing "Fever" on WGBH Blues After Hours program, because this version was so unique and funky and still had all the power of Little Willie John's original. I also anticipated that this artist would bring the same skill and charm to her other songs, and the album exceeded my expectations with Bryant's originals and her copies of various folk, blues and pop songs all in her singularly funky style.