Slide to Freedom
Slide to Freedom has truly absorbed the essence of late-1960s San Francisco counterculture. This album, brought to life by Doug Cox and others, blends Mississippi blues with Indian music. It crosses genre boundaries, because sometimes — rarely, of course — the music itself is everything. From the beautifully sliding “Pay Day” to the bustling “Meeting by the River,” this group of musicians is something special.
“Pay Day” is the perfect opener. Doug Cox’s voice differs slightly from that of a Mississippi Delta native — there’s a faint roughness and tremor to it, but it suits the music perfectly. Cox’s guitar and Bhatt’s Mohan Veena play off each other with a simplicity that’s also wondrous, arguably outshining every other acoustic blues record out there…
They say this CD was made by “the gathering of many talents,” and that’s no exaggeration — there’s plenty of unseen, unheard work behind it. Cox himself notes on the sleeve: “These aren’t ordinary musicians. Forming a free musical collective with players of such extraordinary gifts is one of the bright spots of my career.” The music on this record is more than mere words — it’s a covenant between people and gods.