Telarc
2007
Zion Crossroads
About This Album
Corey Harris has spent his career digging for roots, looking for the links that bind his beloved blues with African music and other tributaries of black music, including old-time jazz and R&B. On the brilliant 2003 Mississippi to Mali, Harris took his recording equipment to the field in those two seemingly far-apart locales, and discovered they were closer than you might think. Before that, on 1999's Greens from the Garden, he found common threads between the blues of the Delta and the many variations of Americana that Louisiana has to offer. For Zion Crossroads, Harris turns his attention to reggae -- real roots reggae, not the often unrecognizable spinoffs that pass for it today. At times, Zion Crossroads is virtually indistinguishable from the righteous, spiritually motivated, Rasta-centered reggae that first emerged from Jamaica in the early '70s. Harris' songs here deal with the issues that concerned the pioneers like Bob Marley, Burning Spear, and Black Uhuru, when reggae was vital to the Rastafarian existence, not just another exotic rhythm on the dancefloor. In "Sweatshop," Harris laments the deplorable conditions under which so many still labor today: "All day on your feet just to make ends meet/So hot it burn your skin, tell you it's a grievous sin.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,8,9 and 10)

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