Product Description
RORY BLOCK - HEAVY ON THE BLUES
RELEASE DATE AUGUST 22, 2025. ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!
M.C. Records is thrilled to release Rory Block's Heavy On The Blues. She is the standard bearer for early American roots blues- a celebrated, multi-award-winning artist and a songwriter whose originals ring with unadorned power and truth. Her new release will be a mix of covers and original songs, including Jimi Hendrix, Memphis Minnie, and Koko Taylor. Special guest is Ronnie Earl. Rory Block is a Gold-album selling and 7-time Blues Music Award winner, widely regarded as the top female performer of traditional country blues. Rory's commitment as a blues preservationist with an ear for finding the soul of every song she performs has rewarded her with accolades from the blues and roots music community. Rory Block cut her first album at age 12, backing her father on The Elektra String Band Project. In her career, she has produced 36 albums. Rory is living life as a music producer, author, ordained minister (she refers to it as "Preaching the Blues"), a music producer, festival promoter, mother, wife, and friend to thousands at her ChurchLIVE venue in rural Chatham, New York.
- 1 Hi Heel Sneakers
- 2 Walking the Back Streets
- 3 What Kind of Women of This
- 4 Hold to His Hand
- 5 The Wind Cries Mary
- 6 Down the Dirt Road Blues
- 7 Mississippi Blues
- 8 Me and My Chauffeur
- 9 Can't Quit That Stuff
- 10 Stay Around a Little Longer
RORY BLOCK
Heavy On The Blues
M.C. Records
Disclaimer: I’ve been friends with Rory Block for more than half a century.
Call it prejudice if you will, but I think Rory Block just may be the greatest acoustic blues guitarist alive. This album pretty much proves my point. She’s very humble about her abilities, but has become ever braver in what she handles on record. Her last release was all Bob Dylan covers and, on this album, she covers Jimi Hendrix’s “The Wind Cries Mary.”
There are her patented covers of standards including Memphis Minnie’s “Me And My Chauffer,” Charley Patton’s “Down The Dirt Road Blues,” and the traditional “Hold To His Hand.” She also covers two Buddy Guy standards “Stay Around A Little Longer” and “What Kind Of Woman Is This,” and Tommy Tucker’s 1963 Top 20 hit, “High Heal Sneakers.”
Block shares guitar runs with three other blues veterans, Ronnie Earl, Jimmy Vivino, and Joanna Connor. After decades with Rounder and Stony Plain, this is her first album on M.C. Records. She’s in good company on a label whose current releases include albums from Big Jack Johnson and Nick Gravenites. The label has been around for 34 years and has been nominated or won more than 30 Blues Music Awards. As they rightly should, M.C. gave Block full authority to follow her muse.
At 75, she’s a legend even if she can’t believe her own press. She first recorded at age 12 in Greenwich Village and knew Dylan before he signed with Columbia. She hung out with Son House and proves time and time again that she’s the master of her craft.
If you believe that old saw that you have to pay your dues to play the blues, Bock would seem to prove that true here. She covers a hundred years of blues chestnuts from “Down The Dirt Road Blues” that sounds like she’s channeling Charley Patton from the grave to Jimi Hendrix’s haunting “The Wind Cries Mary” with Joanna Connor joining her on guitar. Through the ten songs here, I feel like an eaves dropper on a very private revelation into her spirit which has seen both the horrors and wonders of a world traveler which she has been for more than half a century.
“Walking The Back Streets” is a simple arrangement with the two guitars tickling each other. On this Little Milton number with Ronnie Earl on guitar, she lets loose, escaping into the music letting the lyrics consumer her spirit. “Hold To His Hand” is a traditional gospel with a hand clapping a cappella chorus. She slips into falsetto on Willie Brown’s “Mississippi Blues.” “Can’t Quit That Stuff” is her only original calling on Howlin’ Wolf who told her to “watch me.”
-– Don Wilcock