Blues purists and Blues Roots fans rejoice! San Francisco's Chris Cotton has recorded an album faithfully dedicated to the origins of the genre. Says Cotton, however, "Call it Americana. Most people, when they think of Blues, think of B.B. King or Stevie Ray Vaughan. What I'm doing is not really technically Blues. There's not one 12-bar Blues on the whole record." Playing in the Piedmont style of such 1930s Carolina legends as Blind Boy Fuller and the Rev. Gary Davis, Cotton's treatment of the Blues sounds distinctly old fashioned.

The Piedmont Style, says Cotton, requires "playing the bass line and the melody concurrently and all the chords in between - all at the same time."

Cotton cut his just-released album in April 2004 for the Yellow Dog label of Memphis at a downtown Clarksdale, Mississippi, studio (Delta Recording Studio) owned by Jimbo Mathus, who produced the CD. Mathus of Squirrel Nut Zippers, Buddy Guy's band, and his own Knockdown Society, is well-studied in Roots and Blues. As producer, Jimbo added some tenor banjo, drums, bass, and slide guitar parts, plus the co-mixing to analog tape. Mathus's studio also contained the vintage equipment (RCA ribbon mics and '50s era amplifiers) to give the record its old-timey sound.

Other studio artists on the CD include Lee Williams (drums), Hamilton Rott (fiddle), Barry Bays (bass), Adam Woodard (piano), and guest Big Jack Johnson on "Black Night."

"I Watched the Devil Die," the title track, is a Cotton original. The surprising upbeat and jaunty tone of this song hides its low-down lyrics. "The Devil gets drunk all the time/The Devil gets drunk all the time/He'll ask you for a nickel and he'll end up with all your dimes/You want my soul, motherfucker? Stay away!" Cotton warns. This Ragtime tune is footstompingly catchy.

"Dying Crapshooter's Blues," a cover of Willie McTell's classic song, will hook you. It's the best slow Blues song on Devil. The tambourine and washboard percussion intro behind the guitar makes you perk up your ears to listen for a rattlesnake. Cotton's vocals are full-bodied and poignant here. It's a shame that the lyrics aren't printed in the liner notes as his originals are, because "Crapshooter's Blues" is one of the most descriptive and clever ballads in the Blues genre.

"That's It," a pulse-raising fiddle and banjo spectacular tribute to the Mississippi Sheiks, is one of the shortest songs on the album, but it packs a lot of 1930s roots power in 2:43. During this track, one might imagine one of those old silent movies where the cops chase the prison-striped crooks through all sorts of obstacles in fast-forward speed. Try and dance if you dare risk a heat attack!

In "Blues for Big Bill" Cotton describes Big Bill Broonzy as "the greatest Bluesman that ever lived" in this original track. "Some people don't like me/They want to put me down/Come on now, you'll need C.C. around," sings Cotton as he tries to convince his baby to "hear these Big Bill Blues." Genial and familiar-sounding, this song features Cotton's guitar and vocals backed superbly again by Hamilton Rott's fiddle.

Other standouts are Skip James's "I'm So Glad" and "Black Night," with guest Big Jack Johnson on slide guitar. "Black Night" is a 9:18 excursion into North Mississippi Hill Country Blues with the hypnotic droning rhythms brought out of the hills by the Fat Possum stable of artists.