Jackson Free Press

On May 24, American music iconoclast James Blood Ulmer will release a brand new recording entitled, Birthright, on HYENA Records. It will be Ulmer's first ever solo release in a career that spans over 40 years and more than 25 albums. Birthright features 10 original compositions, including "Geechee Joe," "Take My Music Back To The Church" and "White Man's Jail," plus interpretations of the traditional "Sittin' On Top Of The World" and the Willie Dixon classic "I Ain't Superstitious." Alone on vocals and guitar, Ulmer is captured performing his most stark, personal and organic music to date.

Birthright is the third James Blood Ulmer album produced by Vernon Reid, yet it's a huge departure from his previous two releases: Memphis Blood: The Sun Sessions and No Escape From the Blues: The Electric Lady Sessions. While those records led to a renewed interest in Ulmer's music through a Grammy Award nomination, Rolling Stone Magazine "Best Album" honors, a slot in Martin Scorsese Radio City Music Hall blues celebration and a number of high profile opening slots, they were full band efforts that focused primarily on music from the historic American blues canon such as that by Howlin' Wolf, T-Bone Walker, Jimmy Reed and Son House. On Birthright, James Blood Ulmer turns inward focusing on his own songs and looking to his own muse for inspiration. The record does, however, continue the course begun on those previous efforts with Ulmer acknowledging the blues' influence on his life and music, a subject that was taboo growing up the son of strict Baptist parents in the segregated South. But this time, he deals with it on his own terms. The songs often search for a way in which the blues and God can co-exist side by side such as that of, "Take My Music Back To The Church," or retelling tales of angels and devils like "The Evil One." Ulmer's experience with racism also emerges on both "White Man's Jail" and "Geechee Joe." The latter simultaneously telling the tale of his grandfather, a huge influence in Ulmer's life.

No James Blood Ulmer album would be complete without addressing the more earthly matters of the flesh. "I Can't Take It Anymore" is one of the record's more straight-forward numbers with a steady, driving rhythm and a classic refrain to a spurned lover. "My Most Favorite Thing" is a funky and angular vamp with a warped and seductive guitar line. Applying his own devised tuning for the majority of the songs on Birthright, Ulmer's visionary guitar style, for which he's been celebrated over the years, is back front and center.

Of all the records James Blood Ulmer has recorded over his long and storied career, Birthright gets closest to the root of his genius. Performing alone, utterly transparent, is a bold move, but in true testament to his artistry, Ulmer rises to the moment. When it came time to name the album, the concept was already complete in his mind. It would be called Birthright. These songs, dealing with the old, deep South, the church, God and the Devil, love and deceit and the blues' life, are his and his alone. They are James Blood Ulmer's Birthright.