His name is Boo Boo Davis. He’s got the Boo Boo Blues. Damn lucky for him! He coulda been stuck with the furshlugginer Ethel Lipschitz Blues! Man, what a damnation. But he’s got the Boo Boo Blues. We call that order in the universe. And we’re furshlugginer thankful for it into the bargain.
Not that the three men on this album don’t spend their time trying to knock the earth off its axis, or sink to its, core, or do something to muck up the works. Dangerous troublemakers all, and all anyone can do aside from gape, is breathe a thankful prayer (if you believe in that sort of thing) that politics and war apparently did not interest them. Solely the science of swing, which they sling out sweeter than any pugilism.
Round up the unusual suspects: That’s John Gerritse trying to smack holes in solid rock using only drumsticks. Jan Mittendorp, occasionally spotted running Boo Boo’s label, picks guitar and bass simultaneously on the guitar, which he doesn’t even find tough (“The area between the guitar and the bass is exactly where I feel comfortable”—spoken like the Zen master he probably doesn’t know himself for). And oh yeah the guy howling moaning inveighing and spilling out harp riffs like bloodwine down the cheeks of a battle-binging Klingon—none other than the enigmatic J. Davis, Boo Boo to paying audiences.
Boo Boo never went to school. Boo Boo worships an enigmatic entity known only as “Dave.” Boo Boo says “My Baby Got Me Fixed” but never gets more specific and stays upbeat about the whole affair, even. At the end of a harder-won transcendent one-chord one-riff workout, he’ll shout “Thank You Dave!” Okay, a few songs show more than one chord/riff. Still and all: Thank You Dave!
– Andrew Hamlin
