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rory block: from the dust

telarc records;
cd 83614
review by michael cala

rory block lived in new york’s greenwich village during the folk revival of the 1960s. by age 14, she had
already been playing folk guitar for six years and was a regular at the legendary folk music jams once held
in and around the washington square park fountain.

in addition to studying with gary davis in her teens, block was lucky enough to have met
a number of her country blues idols, including son house, for whom she once performed
willie brown’s “future blues” to the bluesman’s astonishment. she also met and performed
with skip james and fred mcdowell and mississippi john hurt.

at 15, her parents divorced. block left home for california and began a musical road trip
west that ultimately led back to new york city and her first album in 1981, high heel
blues, on rounder records.

in 2003, the busy four-time handy award winner released a solo cd on telarc (last fair
deal); less than a year later, she collaborated with maria muldaur and eric bibb on a
gospel-inflected and often genuinely moving cd titled sisters and brothers.

given her superbly consistent output of country blues over the past quarter century, from
the dust – her 18th solo album -- appears at first glance simply another fine set of
recordings from a riveting performer who has never made a bad or boring album.
however, she’s also a woman whose life has been cast down by tragedy and lifted back up
through music.

close listening to this cd reveals a more personal set of songs than we’re used to from rory block. while
she includes a quartet of classic country blues – including “high water,” “dry spell blues,” “stones in my
passway” and “i be bound,” -- the block-composed lead track and title song, “from the dust,” sounds
almost like an apologia pro sua vita, an explication of why the singer has lived the blues life and why
she’d done the things she’s done.

the track sounds like a musical interpretation of something block writes about eloquently in her online
autobiography, something that many white blues performers have taken to heart:
rory block: 2.

“many people ask me why a fourteen year old white girl from new york city felt so deeply and
personally connected to the music of the black rural south from another era… the music resonated
inside me, felt real, beautiful, spoke to what was in my heart, moved my soul. it cried out as i cried
out, it wept when i wept, it haunted and rolled and wandered as i did.”
[http://www.roryblock.com/pages/lifestory.htm]

when she sings, “from the dust we were born…and when he made us/he made strong emotion/and he
breathed into each body a soul…” it’s block’s humanism, honed by experience, telling us it doesn’t matter
where we were born, or from what nationality – the blues will creep up on us whenever we're reminded of
life’s short and transitory nature.

in her case, the death of her then-20-year-old son, thiele, in an automobile accident in 1986, is one such
reminder. she sings about this trauma explicitly in “remember,” a track that also reminds us that the
tragedies of others are often greater than our own.

one pleasant surprise is the inclusion of block’s speaking voice on several tracks, including the spoken
bridge in “from the dust.” hearing her naturally northeast-inflected speech is akin to taking a quick peek
behind the wizard’s curtain; in some sense, this revelation brings the listener that much closer to the
performer.

“the gate,” features background vocal overdubs by block and its gospel sound strongly suggests her
recent collaboration with muldaur and bibb. when you start adding up the pieces, it appears that block is a
devoutly religious person, or perhaps a committed secular humanist. either way, she’s telling us she’s
found what passes for universal understanding. some call it religion; i’d wager that block calls it simply,
the blues.

from the cd’s dedication, we also learn that rory block is a serious “dog person” and rescuer. she’s so crazy
about dogs that she’s dedicated from the dust to all dogs, and especially her own quartet of canines:

sophie, chester, ranger and beau, all of whom she addresses by name in “runaway dog,”
another block composition.

while there is no record of son house or fred mcdowell having performed a similar song
about a favorite domestic animal, keep in mind that block has taken her beloved country
blues and molded it to her own unique experience – one that includes dogs and family
dissonance as much as tragedy and lost love. in addition, if it wasn’t for block’s utter
dedication to country blues and her enormous talent, it’s likely the form would become
even more marginalized than it already is. recommendation: along with confessions of a
blues singer and roughly 16 other rory block cds, this recording should be in every blues
fan’s collection. michael cala
rory block: 3.