Barrence Whitfield & Tom Russell "Hillbilly Voodoo" 1993

It's appropriate that soul singer Barrence Whitfield has his mouth wide open and folkie Tom Russell has his closed in the cover photos of both this album and its follow-up, Cowboy Mambo...
... Throughout each disc, Whitfield holds the spotlight; Russell joins in the fun and also contributes some songs, but his main role seems to be as producer and fan: he clearly loves Whitfield's music and seems determined to help popularize it. And no wonder -- Whitfield's music is terrific stuff. If you had to slap a label on him, it would be country-soul singer, but he's soaked up far too many influences and turned them into something far too special for that tag to do him justice. The material -- alternately playful and emotional -- is uniformly first-rate, with highlights including Lucinda Williams' "I Just Want to See You So Bad," and Bob Dylan's "Blind Willie McTell," Van Morrison's "Cleaning Windows," Jesse Winchester's "Mississippi, You're on My Mind," and Russell's own "The Cuban Sandwich." - Review by Jeff Burger
trax:
01 Long Black Train 02 The Cuban Sandwich 03 Jack Johnson 04 I Just Want to See You So Bad 05 You Can't Get That Stuff No More 06 Blind Willie McTell 07 Ice Water 08 The Definition of a Fool 09 Chocolate Cigarettes 10 What Is the Color of the Soul of a Man? 12 Cleaning Windows