| Most Things Haven't Worked Out | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1997 | |||
| Genre | Blues | |||
| Label | Fat Possum | |||
| Producer | Bruce Watson, Matthew Johnson | |||
| Junior Kimbrough chronology | ||||
| ||||
Most Things Haven't Worked Out is an album by the American musician Junior Kimbrough, released in 1997. [1] [2] It was his third album for Fat Possum Records and the last before his 1998 death. [3]
All of the album's songs were written by Kimbrough, who generally did not cover the material of other musicians. [4] He elected to keep his mistakes and missed notes on the tracks. [5] Three of the tracks were recorded at his Mississippi juke joint. [6] John Hermann helped produce a few of the songs. [7] Kenny Brown served as the second guitarist. [8] The title track is an instrumental. [9]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [6] |
| Boston Herald |  [10] |
| Robert Christgau |  [11] |
| The Commercial Appeal | [5] |
| DownBeat | [12] |
| MusicHound Blues: The Essential Album Guide | [13] |
| The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings | [14] |
| Winnipeg Sun | [15] |
The Village Voice wrote: "Lurking beneath an ostensibly primitive surface are suggestions of jazz-inflected bluesmen like Robert Jr. Lockwood." [16] Guitar Player determined that "there's a deeply hypnotic quality to Junior Kimbrough's old-as-all-of-time slow blues, perfected over a lifetime of playing jukes around Holly Springs, Mississippi." [17] The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said that "Kimbrough plays the blues to mesmerize, with elements that give trance, ambient/techno and dub its entrainment and rock and roll its visceral claw and kick." [18]
The Washington Post noted that "Kimbrough has a soft spot for love songs and slowly grinding dance grooves." [19] The Boston Herald concluded that "what sounds primitive at first gains unexpected power through repetition and deceptively sophisticated shifts of texture, tone and rhythm." [10] Robert Christgau praised "Lonesome Road". [11]
The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings considered Most Things Haven't Worked Out to be Kimbrough's best album. [14]
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Lonesome Road" | |
| 2. | "I'm in Love" | |
| 3. | "Everywhere I Go" | |
| 4. | "Burn in Hell" | |
| 5. | "Most Things Haven't Worked Out" | |
| 6. | "Leave Her Alone" | |
| 7. | "I Love Ya Baby" | |
| 8. | "I'm Leaving You Baby" |
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