Sometimes it seems like all new blues recordings, be they acoustic or electric, sacrifice substance in favor of pyrotechnics – which makes Jeffrey Scott’s more-relaxed take on the genre so refreshing. While listening here, one gets the feeling he grabbed his guitar after a long day’s work and is pickin’ on his porch, just for you.

A cattleman, hog farmer, mortician, and long-haul trucker, Scott doesn’t view singing and playing the blues as his main occupation. But he’s carrying on the tradition he learned from his uncle, Piedmont blues stylist John Jackson and, like Jackson, the 58-year-old came to recording late in life. Jackson stood out thanks to his Virginia twang, rather than Southern drawl, and would intersperse blues with Jimmie Rodgers country, similar to his nephew’s renditions of Elizabeth Cotten’s “Freight Train” and Lonnie Mack’s “Oreo Cookie Blues.” Scott’s facility on six-string isn’t as intricate as, say, Blind Blake or Rev. Gary Davis, but he displays fine fingerpicking on “Bearcat Blues” and “Steamboat Whistle Blues.”

Thanks go to the nonprofit Music Maker Foundation, which has supported and exposed roots musicians since 1994, for this most welcome debut.

This article originally appeared in VG’s July 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.