(MusicPortal.com) (06/08/06)

Edited By Michael Bennett

NEW YORK, NY, USA - Blues guitar master JIMMY THACKERY teams up with fellow Arkansans the legendary Cate Brothers on the upcoming "In The Natural State," due for release June 26th via Rykodisc Records.

Infused with a sharp, crackling Blues energy matched by the Cates Brothers' innate feel for down-home Rhythm & Blues, "In The Natural State" is a guitar lover's delight, complete with the type of fiery solos and stringbending Blues/Rock only Jimmy Thackery can deliver.

Up in the Ozarks of northwestern Arkansas where Thackery lives, the worries of modern life are miles away. The air is crisp and clear, but every so often you have to dodge a tornado. "I was about 250 feet away from one the other week," the fabled Blues guitarist says, recalling his chilling encounter with a twister. "It looked like a big white whirling mass of crap. The strangest thing was the way it smelled: Like a combination of cedar and an electrical fire."

Good thing Thackery's storm cellar is carved into the side of a mountain. Even when nature's raw elements bid to toss him on his can, the well-traveled musician can dig in and hold his ground. And so it is with "In The Natural State," his debut release on Rykodisc, which serves as a soulful musical tribute to his adopted home - tornados and all.

"We just came up with some fun material we all liked and some originals I had in my arsenal," Thackery says of the album. The performers didn't have to travel far to record, as Thackery enlisted the home studio of a friend who runs a local bed-and-breakfast. That may sound wacky, but as the guitarist is quick to note: "It's a world-class studio right here in the woods, and we were all able to go back home for dinner every night. The Cates Brothers have been playing music in these parts for 40-odd years, so this was a totally homegrown project."

With a ringing endorsement from Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and the Razorback State's rich musical heritage to draw upon, Thackery and his cohorts fell into an easy groove - thanks in part to their longstanding friendship onstage and off. "We've all played together on live situations, it wasn't a stretch at all," he says. "The album was cut in four days. I was almost knocked out of my tree because there were no glitches, no screw-ups. The whole thing was charmed, in a way."

Thackery -- whose 17 years with Washington, D.C., roadhouse warriors the Nighthawks has been followed by an even longer solo career -- infuses the songs with an energy matched by the Cates' innate feel for R&B laced with grit and honey. You can hear it come to life on gutsy opening tune 'Out Of Mississippi,' a slyly humorous boogaloo about putting trouble out of sight and certainly out of mind. The journey continues on the instrumental 'Arky Shuffle,' a track that was almost incidental.

"I said, 'Oh, fellas, come on let's just kick off a little shuffle in G and see what happens.' In my mind, it was just a fluke, but it came off with one of the best feels on the record. There's nothing fancy about it. There's just a great groove that happened. Nobody was rehearsing. Sometimes when you're loose and you're not going for the ultimate cut, the ultimate cut happens anyway."

Thackery reaches back to his earlier years for 'I Got A Rich Man's Woman,' a tune that hails from his days playing alongside Blues giant Muddy Waters. Along with a pair of beloved Junior Wells songs ('Hoodoo Man Blues,' 'Snatch It Back An Hold It'), the track acknowledges Thackery's link to older traditions, and the seminal artists whose influence guides him daily.

The only problem with the Muddy Waters tune? "I couldn't for the life of me remember the damn third verse," he says. A call to Bob Margolin, Waters' former guitar player, yielded no answer, "But he put on his foil hat and got transmissions from space and called me back up. He remembered the third verse."

Of his mentor, Thackery observes: "Muddy was not the paternal figure. He was Grandpa! And he was scarier than my Grandpa. Muddy was the kind of guy who wouldn't tell you what to do. But he knew what NOT to do, and if you were doing something wrong you got your hand slapped right quick! He was hysterically funny. He would tell you what you were doing wrong, and it was up to you to figure out how to do it right."

Those lessons have served Thackery well over the years, even as he has stepped away from the constant touring schedules of his younger days. The honky tonk business is not what it used to be, though the music made In The Natural State is as vital and explosive as ever. The Blues never go away, a point driven home by the heartbreaking 'Levee Prayer' - a song inspired by the apocalyptic flood that swept through New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in August of 2005.

"I just saw these people wading up to the Superdome and I thought, 'My God, this is just Armageddon'," Thackery says. "I started thinking about some poor guy standing in the street there, going 'What next?' I mean, I'm a God-fearing guy but, you know, I'm ready to shoot somebody here."

There's also a healing force in the blue-eyed soul of Ernie Cates voice, which comes through powerfully on the beseeching 'Tell Me Goodbye,' a song originally intended for Thackery's pal Tab Benoit. Getting together with the Louisiana blues guitarist and vocalist proved impossible between the hurricanes that have plagued the Gulf Coast region. "But my other favorite singer in the world is Ernie, and he's right here."

Such choices, made as if by second nature, are what make Thackery's performances so easily convincing. His is the sound of a man doing exactly what he wants to do, with a lifetime of experience to show him how. In The Natural State isn't just the name of an album, or an allusion to a geographical place - it's a way of being.

"You know what, man? I'll be 53 next month and doing this stuff for 40 years," Thackery declares. "I've gotten to the point in my life where I'm not going to try to fool anybody anymore. I'm gonna play what I want to play. It makes me smile. If I do that, I stand a better chance of reaching someone than if I'm playing something because I think they're going to like it."

"If I think Joe Six-Pack is going to like this song, then I'm trying to fool everybody. And it just doesn't work. If I'm honest about my music, and I play the stuff that really lights my own fire, if I stick with that, I'm going to reach a lot more folks."

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