V/A feat. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Play It! Volume Four: An EMI PYNX Play Compilation (CD, CANADA)

The song Talk About The Blues was written as a direct response to a Rolling Stone review of Now I Got Worry and Q&A with Jon Spencer.

The review asked “what right young, white boys have to play the blues, the scribe opined that “Spencer’s faux backwoods drawl verges on minstrel-show insult.”

What actually sent Spencer off, however, was a tamer Rolling Stone Q&A, in which he answered earnest queries about how a New Hampshire boy fresh from sneering punk deconstructionists Pussy Galore fell for the authentic blues music of Hound Dog Taylor and Mississippi Fred McDowell.

After the interview – perhaps feeling his authenticity in question, perhaps frustrated that the soul, funk and hip-hop sides of his band get overlooked because of the name Blues Explosion – Spencer sat down and wrote “Talk About The Blues.”

[This text is from a CMJ New Music Monthly article titled ‘Acme Blues Explosives, INC’.]

The song lyric features a the line “I do not play no blues, I play rock and roll” which, of course, is a reference to the album I Do Not Play No Rock ‘n’ Roll by Mississippi Fred McDowell.

In a later Rolling Stone interview Jon Spencer said “I’d rather be known as a rock & roller. I mean we don’t really play blues. How would you describe it? It’s the exact opposite of Mississippi Fred McDowell. He’d always say, “I do not play no rock & roll.” He had a record called that, too.”

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