Different Shades of Blue

BLUES ACE KIRK FLETCHER TAKES US DEEP INTO THE HEART OF HIS NEWEST RELEASE, THE APTLY TITLED MY BLUES PATHWAY

- Amit Sharma

KIRK FLETCHER WAS driving back from the 2019 King Biscuit Blues Festival in Helena, Arkansas, when he experienced what he describes as “a bit of an epiphany” regarding his next studio release. Initially it was set to be an album of original material, delving deep into the singer/guitarist’s love for funk and R&B, but early one fateful morning he realized he needed to go back to the source and pay tribute to the blues masters of old.

“That festival is near to where my family are from, close to the Mississippi,” says Fletcher of the lightbulb moment behind his sixth album, My Blues Pathway, a mixture of originals, co-writes and covers of Sonny Boy Williamson, Chris Cain, A.C. Reed and Juke Boy Bonner. “I was driving at 6 in the morning, literally through the Delta, and I asked myself, ‘What am I doing?!’ I know it sounds cliché but it just hit me — I realized I needed to do a blues record. All the lessons I’ve learned along the way, all the mistakes, fused into everything I know about singing my own songs as well as other people’s music.”