Renowned for blending global influences with the raw intimacy of American Primitive blues, guitarist Ryan Lee Crosby has journeyed from his Portsmouth home to the legendary Blue Front Café in Bentonia, Mississippi—the very juke joint founded in the 1940s where Skip James once played—to record his forthcoming album At the Blue Front, set for digital, CD, and cassette release on August 20.
Crosby packed his 1980s Tascam 22-4 four-track portable reel-to-reel tape machine into the backseat of a borrowed Toyota Venza, bracing it amid the roar of a passing freight train outside the Blue Front. Under the guidance of Grammy Award–nominee Jimmy “Duck” Holmes—the last of the Bentonia blues lineage and current steward of the Blue Front—Crosby immersed himself in the minor-key open tuning known as crossnote and the falsetto-tinged vocal style that defines the form. “Ryan Lee Crosby… brings influences from Africa and India to the Bentonia sound,” raved Smithsonian Magazine, while Acoustic Guitar Magazine praised his ability to “dig into the frayed, meandering vulnerability… turning this old-school sadness into something profoundly modern.”
The album opens with four Crosby compositions and four spontaneous recordings captured live at the café: “Going Away,” “I’m Gonna Change,” “I’ve Been Worried,” and “Mistreating People,” followed by four collaboration tracks with Holmes—“Hard Times,” “Catfish,” “Slow Down (Part 2),” and “Tell Me.” The first single and video for “Catfish,” filmed on location at the Blue Front and featuring Holmes alongside Crosby, debuts today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enU9RJcDiKo.
A ritual of spontaneity informed the sessions. “The blues is conversational music—on many levels,” Crosby explains. “A one-chord blues can give the mind, as well as the heart, a place to rest and regroup. Some of the lyrics were sung in real time as we listened to each other during the session.” Holmes—whose previous album was produced by Dan Auerbach—sat in on four songs, passing the mic back and forth, and will also appear on his own forthcoming release, Bentonia Blues / Right Now.
Joining Crosby and Holmes is percussionist Grant Smith, whose calabash drum (a gourd-derived West African instrument) adds hypnotic depth inspired by Ali Farka Touré and Boubacar Traoré. Crosby himself mixed the project in New England, applying sparse overdubs to preserve the Blue Front’s ambient hum and the café’s storied resonance.
Crosby’s rise has been chronicled by Guitar Player, Aquarium Drunkard, WBUR, Premier Guitar, American Blues Scene, and others; he has opened for Pokey LaFarge, The Hold Steady, Chris Smither, and Charlie Parr, and is a fixture at Clarksdale’s Juke Joint Fest and the Hudson Valley’s Meadowlark Fest. His song “Down So Long” earned placement on Spotify’s official Blues on the Rocks playlist.
Ryan Lee Crosby At the Blue Front Track Listing:
Going Away; I’m Gonna Change; I’ve Been Worried; Mistreating People; Hard Times (w/ Jimmy “Duck” Holmes); Catfish (w/ Jimmy “Duck” Holmes); Slow Down (Part 2) (w/ Jimmy “Duck” Holmes); Tell Me (w/ Jimmy “Duck” Holmes).
Ryan Lee Crosby Tour Dates:
May 10 – Brooklyn, NY (The Bridge Studio)
June 20 – Memphis, TN (The Green Room, w/ Willie Farmer)
June 21 – Bentonia, MS (Bentonia Blues Festival)
Sept 14 – Stone Ridge, NY (Meadowlark Fest)
At the Blue Front will be available August 20 via all major digital platforms, as well as on CD and limited-edition cassette. For more information, visit ryanleecrosby.com.
