Indigo
1996
Blue Inside
About This Album
The third of six Indigo label CDs anthologizing the vast corpus of unreleased material left behind by Duster Bennett, Blue Inside follows the earlier Jumpin' at Shadows and Out in the Blue in simply presenting the music without any attempt at explanation -- largely because there was no explanation to give. When Bennett died, his personal archive comprised a mountain of unlabelled, undated, and, sometimes, untitled tapes, a treasure trove that includes some of the finest performances of Bennett's entire career. Certainly the live performances that open Blue Inside rate alongside the best of his Blue Horizon recordings, while only the occasional dip in sound quality dents the album's overall enjoyment -- the brief (90 seconds) "I Wonder Why," for example, captures Bennett in raucous, blues-wailing style, but was apparently taped from another room entirely. Such troughs cannot be held against the album or, indeed, the spirit of the series. For close to a quarter of a century after 1970's 12dbs album, Bennett fans weren't simply starved of new material, they were all but ignored completely. These three albums of undated odds and ends, and the more firmly annotated rarities collections that followed them through the late '90s, don't simply represent the lifting of sanctions. They restore for grateful posterity the opportunity to experience Britain's greatest bluesman once again. ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide
Track List (try tracks 4,5,7,8 and 13)

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