An arsonist tried to burn down Little Rock’s most famous dive bar twice in the 1980s. One listen to Live at White Water Tavern, Vol. 1 will convince you that Jimbo Mathus finished the job a few decades later. He’s backed here by The Creatures of the Southern Wild, his road-seasoned band, playing music as raucous and righteous as the room where it was recorded.
Mixing old favorites (“Skateland Baby”) with one newer song (“Go Out to LA”), Mathus demonstrates why he has earned a reputation as an animated hell-raiser with roots that spiral deep into the soil of Mississippi, his home state. Live at White Water Tavern, Vol. 1 rarely lets up, from the prison-shank menace of “Blues So Bad” to the album closer, “Alligator Fish,” an electrifying Jerry Lee Lewis-meets-Captain Beefheart jumble.
The album’s comparatively mellow numbers – the Joe Ely-flavored “South of Loredo” and the wistful, Stones-y “Skateland Baby” – substitute heartache for havoc. The Creatures of the Southern Wild follow their leader through every hairpin turn, matching him in mood and intensity. They lit up the night sky in Little Rock, and the fire burns on in these grooves.
