sid hemphill: the devil's dream

Multi-instrumentalist, band-leader, and composer Sid Hemphill (1876-1961) was for decades the musical patriarch of the Mississippi Hill Country. He and his band -- comprised of Alec 'Turpentine' Askew, Will Head, and Lucius Smith were fixtures at dances, picnics, and frolics throughout the right triangle formed by Memphis, the Delta, and the Hill Country. This LP features Alan Lomax's first recording of Blind Sid in August 1942, near Sledge, Mississippi, where the Hemphill band was appearing at a country picnic. By that date hundreds of commercial records had been made of the music of the Delta, and the preponderance of those were of or relating to the blues form, with guitar or piano accompaniment. Lomax's recordings were the first made of the Hill Country's local music, and contributed to a broader perspective of black vernacular instrumentation with their inclusion of the fiddle and banjo of the string band, the fife and drum ensemble, and the cane panpipes or 'quills. This music is wild & loose & of a style seldom heard. Includes liner notes insert by Nathan Salsburg.