Scott Dunbar

Fortunately, there are no such monkeyshines with Scott Dunbar, one of the original hill country bluesmen. The son of an ex-slave who learned to play on a makeshift, home-made guitar, Dunbar, who died in 1994 at the age of 90, had the classic makeup of the mythical Delta blues man. He was a moaner with nearly non-existent guitar technique, sounding more like he was scraping rust off his strings than picking or strumming them, but he was only one generation removed from slave songs and field hollers - if authenticity means anything to you, this is something you have to investigate. A local legend long before From Lake Mary was originally released in 1972, Dunbar was also a huge inspiration on the current generation of Mississippi hill country bluesmen, most notably Robert Cage, whose 1997 album, Can You See What You're Doing, is virtually a electrified but equally raw remake of From Lake Mary.