Fool Me Good

Recorded by Amos Harvey at the Zelda Station — the living room of longtime friends Cathy and Fred Fussell — Precious Bryant’s Fool Me Good is a unique field recording of sorts. A performer in varying degrees of formality for over 30 years, Bryant had never recorded or released a full-length record of her rural Georgia blues, though she had been documented numerous times. Armed with an acoustic guitar, Bryant wends her way through the highlights of the repertoire she has accumulated over the span of nearly 60 years, collecting songs from family, friends, and fellow musicians. Her voice is oddly sweet for the blues, with a guitar style to match, rarely encroaching on even remotely gruff territory, nor is too refined. She works best on pop standards like “Fever,” which finds a middle ground between the genres. As a female blues singer, she is a rarity, and an enjoyable one at that. One can almost imagine her voice rising off of old shellac 78s coated in a layer of crackle and hiss. – Jesse Jarnow