Bishop Perry Tillis: Blues, Up Above My Head

The infighting that goes on between two sides of the same person can create a tremendous strain. A rationalization of one’s occupation to the beliefs that an individual possesses doesn’t always turn out right. It’s an endless back and forth. And only occasionally is the outcome realized in any sort of responsible time frame. Bishop Perry Tillis had a bought with all of this – I guess he won. Kinda. But as blues players made their way to all points north, a great many of ‘em called Chicago home. So did Tillis, for a time. That internal dialogue, though, eventually persuaded the guitarist and singer to make his way back to Alabama.

While up north, though, Tillis found himself in the company of Muddy Waters amongst others that were making the rounds in Chicago. There isn’t a great deal of evidence to bear out any sort of influence the north had on this player apart from the fact that he most assuredly found the distractions in the city enough to send him packing – and to work for a higher calling. But amongst the reverends and preachers that populate the blues landscape, I don’t think that there are any others that go by the name Bishop (although, there’s an X-Men character by that name).

But when Bishop Perry Tillis headed back down south, he made the church his home, heading up a congregation in Samson, Alabama. There’s scant info in those innernets as to what his function was there and how long he served at that place of worship, but Tillis clearly choose a life of gospel music over the pratfalls associated with living the life of a blues player. He can’t be faulted.

Coming out on the venerable and generally consistent Mississippi Records, In Times Like These finds itself comprised of an amalgam of various edits from something like seventy hours of home recorded tape. And while the faint of heart might not be able to wade through the fuzz that’s (unintentionally) here, if given a shot, there’s a reward at the end – just like life.

But the reason for the nothing other than low fidelity approach to it all has to do with the fact that Tillis overdubbed himself using a variety of boom boxes. On a few tracks, like “Praise the Lord Everyday,” listeners can even hear what I assume to be members of the congregation that Tillis was associated with singing along – there’s also a little kid making some noise. Bonus. It doesn’t quite equal that audible train in the background of Son House’s “Death Letter,” but the ambient noise here roots In Times Like These in a place and yes, a time.

Considering the scarcity of anything that Mississippi Records puts out, the considerable effort at this point that would be needed to track this disc down might not be worth it. That’s not to say that the Bishop isn’t a good (decent?) listen, but there’re better stuffs out there from Mississippi and a variety of other imprints.