| A little known album by the Squirrel Nut Zippers' James Mathus and some friends of his from back home. Rosetta is the name of the woman who raised young Jim in Clarksdale, Mississippi many years ago. She's the grandaughter of one of the greats of early Jazz, the Delta Blues-man, Charlie Patton. Like many of his contemporaries, Charlie Patton was never issued proper royalties, and never made any money from his work. Rosetta is now more or less penniless, so Jimbo decided to gather up some old friends from the neighborhood, (as well as some guitars, some harmonicas, some washboards, and a gut bucket) and record some old Charlie Patton songs as a tribute to him - and send all the proceeds to Rosetta as a thank-you to her.
The songs are raw, one-room, one-track beauties. A mix of Patton tunes, Delta Blues standards and Jas. Mathus originals, its one of the most honest and nostalgic albums I've heard in a long time. This album also prominently features the gut bucket, an almost forgotten staple of early blues music.
1. I Got Mine
2. Keep Your Hands Off
3. Diggin' My Potatoes
4. Jesus Is a Dying-Bed Maker
5. Blues for Blind Melon
6. Mississippi Moan
7. Hey Hey
8. Turkey Buzzard in a Pork Pie Hat
9. Don't Make Me Wait
10. Who'll Sop My Gravy
11. Goin' Down the Road
12. Memphis Bound
13. She's Alright
14. Some of These Days
From the Patton original, Some of These Days, here is a little spoken word from Roebuck "Pops" Staples
I was raised on the Will Dockery place from the time I was eight till I got to be 20 years old. Charley Patton stayed on what we called the Lower Dockery place, and we stayed on the Upper Dockery.
He was one of my great persons that inspired me to try to play guitar. He was really a great man. At first I was too small to go hear him on a Saturday night. But on Saturday afternoons, everybody would go into town, and those fellows like Charley Patton, Robert Johnson and Howlin' Wolf would be
playin' on the streets, standin' by the railroad tracks, people pitchin' 'em
nickels and dimes, white and black people both.
The train came through town maybe once that afternoon, and when it was time, everybody would gather around, just to see that train pull up. They'd play around there, before and after the train came, and announce where they'd be that night, and that's where the crowd would
go.
They'd have a plank nailed across the door to the kitchen, and be selling fish
and chitlins, with dancin' in the front room, gamblin' in the side room, and
maybe two or three gas or coal-oil lamps on the mantelpiece in front of the
mirror, powerful lights.
It was different people's houses-no clubs or nothin'. And I finally grew up to play. | 
