One last call for the blues

The latest—and possibly last—albums by the veteran musicians Andy Fairweather Low and Dave Mason keep alive a British blues tradition ignited in the 1960s by the likes of the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and John Mayall.

It’s a tradition rich with irony. The blues is, after all, quintessentially American, seeded by the experiences of slaves or their progeny, neither of whom would likely have hit upon blues expression had they not been exposed to life (and death) in the United States. But it’s also a tradition that proves the universality of pain and sorrow. The blues is no respecter of persons.

The Invisible Bluesman Andy Fairweather Low

Fairweather Low’s album is The Invisible Bluesman (The Last Music Company). It might be his final release because his last effort, 2023’s all-original Flang Dang, flopped. What’s the point of such labors of love, the 76-year-old Welshman has wondered in interviews, if the love isn’t going to be reciprocated?

Mason’s album is A Shade of Blues (Barham). It might be his last because Mason, 79, has in the last six months undergone heart surgery and weathered an infection serious enough to require postponing a tour.

Neither album is entirely new. Fairweather Low’s recordings of Slim Harpo’s “Got Love If You Want It,” Junior Parker’s “Mystery Train,” and Carl Perkins’ “Matchbox,” for example, previously appeared on his other 2023 album, Listen Here. (Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s “So Glad You’re Mine” did too but in a shorter, studio version.) And the recordings of at least two of Mason’s five originals, “Use It or Lose It” (featuring Joe Bonamassa) and “It’s Just You and Me” (featuring Michael McDonald), go back years.

A Shade of Blues Dave Mason

Neither are the albums equally bluesy. Fairweather Low stays within the canon (Bessie Smith’s “Gin House Blues,” a hit for Fairweather Low’s ’60s band Amen Corner, appears in two ­different edits), but Mason goes beyond. He pays homage to the repertoire (the Reverend Gary Davis’ “Cocaine Blues,” Robert Johnson’s “Come On in My Kitchen” and “Dust My Broom” [retitled “Dust My Blues”], the Albert King staple “Born Under a Bad Sign”). But he also covers—and covers well—two not especially bluesy numbers by his ’60s band Traffic (“Dear Mr. Fantasy,” “The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys”).

A bigger difference is the way the albums sound. In the studio or live, Fairweather Low’s keening, clenched-teeth singing and use of (mostly) unplugged instruments give his performances a raw, playfully energetic intimacy. Mason, on the other hand, prefers surrounding his baritone voice with the kinds of plugged-in sonics and polish that made him an FM-radio regular in the 1970s. Each approach works. The blues is no respecter of production ­techniques either.