Judy Roderick & the Forbears with special guest Mac Rebennack (aka Dr John)

How excited can you get about a 24 year old recording? Pretty excited, as I see peoples faces light up and hear exclamations over the phone... this is fun! Yes, there are people who still remember and get nostalgic about the good old days - reminiscing about Judy and others who are no longer with us. Funny how a recording brings someone back to life!

But even more fun are folks who cant really tell you what they were doing in 1983. Watching their eyes get big and their jaws drop ... then comes a big smile, "Wow! That rocks!"

Here is the first review of the new year:

http://www.buffalonews.com/gusto/story/538321.html

Judy Roderick & the Forbears

When I’m Gone

[Dexofon]

When blues musicologist Dick Waterman first saw Judy Roderick take the stage of Cambridge’s Club 47 back in the 1960s, he expected to hear something prim and preppy — like maybe “Greensleeves” — from this petite musician, dressed in plaid skirt and sensible shoes.

What Waterman heard was an inspired blues belter, fluent in the form and so much more.

Roderick, who died in 1992 just shy of 50, left behind a modest but remarkable body of work, born of the ‘60s folk revival and enriched by a contagious respect for myriad styles, from vintage jazz to country blues. Her commercial high-water mark was “Woman Blue,” released by Vanguard Records in 1965 and still available in retail racks to this day.”

Her extended family, including notable musicians scattered hither and yon, fans of long memory and kin at Sardinia’s Olmsted Camp, continue to fly the flag for Roderick, who could perform in any company, bar none, and quite admirably.

Longtime collaborator Dexter Payne, witness to this unique talent, has reassembled and re-released “When I’m Gone,” a 1982 recording of Roderick and her incredibly tight band, the Forbears: Washboard Chaz Leary, Don DeBacker, Tim Martin and Payne. The recording, which includes several guest slots by Mac Rebennack, aka Dr. John, is a rollicking reward from the git-go to git-gone.

Extended-play honors go to the title cut, “When I’m Gone,” an achingly clever, slyly hip musing on being here — and not being here. Roderick soulfully surfs the crest of a strong horn section and Dr. John keyboards on three other barn-burners: “Surprises,” “Denver to Dallas” and Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s “Shout Sister Shout.” She turns on the slow heat in a slinky and sultry take on Jimmie Lunceford’s “Dream of You.” The disc ends in a folkie mode, mining a late 1970s track of “Floods of South Dakota,” back in the days when Roderick and Payne kept company with a group called The Big Sky Mudflaps.

“When I’m Gone” is a clear view of an amazing artist who deserves much more recognition. It is fresh and vital.

— Randy Rodda

And now, here is a technology that definitely was not here in 83. This is for when you are just to tired or too busy to punch your way over to www.dexofon.com and listen to the these great sounds. Just hit this and you are at a "Judy Roderick tune-pak". Youll see what I mean.
Go ahead... Click it! Nudge it! Enjoy!!!

And then, once your energized... come on over! www.dexofon.com