Walter ‘Furry’ Lewis was one of the first of the old-time blues musicians of the 1920s to be brought out of retirement and given a new lease of recording life by the folk-blues revival of the 1960s. In the Mississippian’s early travels as a musician, he encountered a wide variety of like-minded performers, including Bessie Smith and Blind Lemon Jefferson, while later in his career, he twice opened for the Rolling Stones. In this immersive performance of a proper blues/gospel standard, “When I Lay My Burden Down,” Lewis illustrates the gutsy combination of agony and ecstasy at the heart of the blues. In doing so in such a versatile fashion–with both rhythm and slide guitar–he illustrates how its compelling sounds captured the imagination of Jagger, Richard, and company (plus so many of their contemporaries) at the time Furry’s profile was (not coincidentally) rightfully on the rise.
