Willie Farmer, The Man from the Hill Review

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Willie Farmer’s story is inspiring, the true love of a genre can never be shaken no matter your age.  The 62-year-old guitarist is neither a soul modernist nor revivalist, but simply a small-town auto mechanic who’s never shaken his love for old school legends like Muddy, Wolf and Lightnin’.  A life long resident of tiny Duck Hill, located in the hills east of the Mississippi Delta, Farmer grew up on the family farm. He first took up the acoustic guitar in his early teens, and through picking cotton soon saved up enough money to buy an electric instrument.  In his early ‘20s Farmer joined a loose knit band that played at juke joints across the area in Duck Hill, Grenada, Kilmichael, and down in the Delta in Greenwood and Charleston. Farmer worked regularly with local semi-professional gospel groups.  His love for the blues never weaned and he eventually decided he wanted to get back into blues actively. The Man From the Hill marks the first time that he’s spent serious time in the studio. Recorded over multiple sessions at Producer Bruce Watson’s Memphis based Delta-Sonic Sound Studio and features a backing band of some of Memphis’ and Mississippi’s best players, including Jimbo Mathus (Valerie June, Elvis Costello), Will Sexton (Amy LaVere), Mark Edgar Stuart (Alvin Youngblood Hart), and Al Gamble (St. Paul & The Broken Bones).  The first single on the album is “I Am the Lightning.” Other songs include Jessie Mae Hemphill’s signature “Shake Baby Shake,” Junior Kimbrough’s “Feel So Bad,” four originals written or co-written by Farmer, and one new work, each written for the album by Watson and Mathus.