Slide To Freedom, 20,000 Miles (Northern Blues)

Eclectic cross-cultural musical exchange program, combining the malleable talents of roots/world music artist Dog Cox and Indian classical master Salil Bhatt, along with some talented friends like percussionist Cassius Khan, Calvin Cooke and members of the Campbell Brothers. There’s also the sublime BettySoo, a first rate Austin-based songwriter who also just happens to be a stunningly good singer. More on that later. Their cover of “Spooky” is pleasantly cross-bred, but only hints at what’s coming later. Super smooth slide guitar sounds (sacred steel) emerge from Bhatt’s satvik veena (a combination slide guitar and Indian veena), and that musical marker works to ground everything in a way, along with Khan’s tabla playing; the overall tossed salad mélange of sounds shift like sand. There’s an awesomely sad cover of Hank William’s “Angel Of Death,” which doesn’t feel out of place at all, and it’s one of the best songs on the album, and there’s an off-the-beaten-path reading of Chuck Berry’s “Wee Wee Hours.” Finally, the best song is BettySoo’s head-spinning “Revival,” a slice of art that could seriously raise her national profile and one of the songs of the year. I’m sure this album could find a home with a wide spectrum of the musical world if it gets the support from radio. At least people everywhere can now find it (and other things like it) on internet radio. BettySoo’s presence on this otherwise fine record is not just unexpected, it crosses up genres and confounds the mind. An entire album of her songs is just around the corner, somewhere, right? Right?