Description
Anthony “Big A” Sherrod’s Torchbearer of the Clarksdale Sound
In the middle of the Mississippi winter, just six weeks into 2025, Jimbo Mathus set up two microphones in an old Clarksdale storefront. He was satisfied with the way the plaster-coated bricks cradled the sound, so he knew he could keep it simple—one mic for the singer, one suspended over the room for everything else. The singer, after all, was a son of these Clarksdale Blues: Anthony “Big A” Sherrod, a local ace who had been raised by a gospel family and the after-school program of the Delta Blues Museum and become the godson of Big Jack Johnson. Mathus knew Big A could carry the day.
Indeed, these five songs, captured in only two hours by the intuitive quartet that Big A leads, hinge on “My Life,” half a talking blues and half a soulful celebration mapping his journey from the kid in short pants learning the bass to the man who has become a mainstay at Red’s Lounge in Clarksdale. He dispenses valuable life lessons in “Everybody Ain’t Your Friend,” a peppy testament against smiling posers, and “Baby That Hurt,” where his licks flicker like an anxious and troubled heart. Here are the Clarksdale blues touched by love, loss, and a little psychedelia, captured straight to tape in the town where they were born.
