"Mississippi" Mick Kolassa plays the blues with feeling, reverence and humor. On Ghosts Of The Riverside Hotel (Swing Suit Records), he's a funky strumming fool who could care less about making a damn dime from his music. That's why all proceeds from the sale of this beauty goes to the Blues Foundation (where he serves on the board of directors). He writes memorable tunes, and sings 'em in a craggy, uneven, unorthodox style. (Mick is also known as Dr. Kolassa, a published author and the CEO at Medical Marketing Economics, a consulting firm he founded in 2002.)
His covers--as picked by him and his producer/lead guitarist Jeff Jensen--are certainly not typical. Hank Williams' "Rambling Man" gets a stoned soul picnic treatment, blues-rock to the core with Jensen's rampaging electric lead picking up the slack. Josh White's 1944 "One Meatball" is a delicious version of a song whose roots go back to 1855 as a drunken Harvard undergraduate favorite. He updates Mark Chesnutt's country version of Todd Snider's "Trouble" ("a woman like you walks into a place like this/you can almost hear the promises break") and he deliberately eschews Three Dog Night's 1970 pop version of what started out as a much darker Randy Newman original ("Mama Told Me Not To Come"), written for a 1966 Eric Burdon solo album.
His originals pick at the scab of human interactions as if he's been burnt one too many times. Be it "Grapes & Greens," "If I Ain't Fishin'," "Whiskey Woman" or "Mama's Got A Mojo," he always seems to be the odd man out. Maybe that's why he's got the blues and feels it so deeply. Last year's Mississippi Mick CD was a promising powerhouse of potential that has now been realized.
