Bitrate: 320K/s
Year: 2001
Time: 50:36
Size: 116,3 MB
Label: Music Maker Inc.
Styles: Blues/Guitar Blues
Art: Full
Tracks Listing:
1. The Cat Ate the Rat, the Rat Ate the Wizard - 4:45
2. Here Comes Floyd - 3:42
3. I Love You - 3:46
4. Strollin' By the Waterfront - 4:44
5. Miss You Like the Devil - 3:27
6. Tater Done - 3:58
7. Let No Woman - 3:25
8. Pre-Alex Stomp - 3:07
9. Send up My Timbers - 3:53
10. Log Cabin Woman - 4:13
11. I Got a Right to Cry Sometimes - 7:29
12. Cootie's Jam - 4:02
If you know the guitar, you might notice that Ferguson has his on "upside-down," with the low sounds coming from the bottom string. That is because Ferguson is a studied but self-taught guitar player. Nobody told him he had the guitar the wrong way around, and by the time they did, he was too good to go to the trouble to change. "I played as a three-year old," Cool John explains. "To hold the guitar, I had to be put in someone's lap while they sat in a chair. I played sing notes on Just a Closer Walk With Thee, my first song. Later on, fooling around with it, I learned to play the lead, bass, and rhythm parts at the same time." Ferguson was born in December 1953 on St. Helena's Island, one of the Sea Islands of South Carolina. He has been playing the guitar since he was three. When he turned five, he started performing in his family's Pentecostal church. You can hear some of that gospel flavor in his playing, as well as a lot of traditional African music mixed with the field and spiritual music. A lot of Ferguson's people came out of the Gullah tradition, with roots in Western Africa, hard work and a hard life on the plantations, and worship in praise houses. He was the featured entertainer for Lowcountry Sing on Channel 5 in Charleston, SC, for three years, appearing with the gospel trio the Ferguson Sisters. In the beginning, it was hard for Ferguson to play anything but gospel music. His parents thought music should only be used to praise God, and while Ferguson believes that is true, he also trusts that all the music he played was praise. In the late '60s, Earl Davis moved to Beaufort, SC, where he was the chorus and band director at Beaufort High School. He had come out of the Army band at the same time Wayne Shorter was doing his service. Davis had an R&B band and, whenever he could, Ferguson would join Davis to play gigs at juke joints, military clubs, Elks and VFW clubs, and anywhere they could perform. Ferguson has been active on tent revival circuits, played with LaFace Records of Atlanta, GA, and collaborated with several well-known artists including Taj Mahal, Kenny Wayne Shepard, BB King, the Stylistics, Beverly Guitar Watkins, Captain Luke, and others. Ferguson has been honored by Living Blues Magazine for two consecutive years as "Most Outstanding Guitarist." He started doing tours of blues festivals and clubs around the world including Lincoln Center Out-Of-Doors, Lucerne Blues Festival, and Switzerland's Blues to Bop Festival, Australia's Byron Bay Blues Festival, Word of Mouth, the Savannah Music Festival, Columbia Blues Festival, and many others throughout the world. He has kept his feet in the juke joint tradition, playing a whole lot of Saturday nights at All Peoples Grill in north Durham, NC, and other clubs in North Carolina, South Carolina, and surrounding states. Taj Mahal stated that Ferguson ranks "among the five greatest guitarists in the world. He is a force to be reckoned with in the music industry. He is with the ranks of Jimi Hendrix, Wes Montgomery, and Django Reinhart." Give him a listen and decide for yourself!
