When blues artist EG Kight warms up the crowd with her confiding, downhome patter, she feels obliged to explain some things to newcomers.
âSome people from up north think pot likker refers to drugs and alcohol,â she says, in a languorous drawl. âBut itâs something good you sop up with cornbread.â
Then she launches into a crowd favorite, âBlues and Greens,â a tribute to two regional staples of the good life, singing, âStreak oâ lean and fatback, good as homemade sin...â Her guitar licks are as irresistibly fat and greasy as her lyrics.
âSheâs very Southern,â understates her guitar player, Ken Wynn.
In the 1970s, her buddies nicknamed her the âGeorgia Songbird,â which since has been shortened to just âBird.â Kight has spent more than 25 years as a road-tested, old-school ax slinger, vocalist and songwriter, working in the groove between country blues and the Chicago sound. Her voice can veer from crisp, whisky-smooth phrasing to barrelhouse belting, punctuated with the occasional growl, drawing the inevitable comparisons with Bonnie Raitt. It was legend Koko Taylor, though, who was Kightâs mentor and patron until her death in 2009.
âOne afternoon Iâd been stuck in Atlanta traffic for quite a long time,â she says. âWhen we started moving again, at a pretty good pace, my phone rang. I knew I shouldnât answer it, going so fast down the interstate, but it was Koko Taylor! She said she was getting ready to record one of my songs and wanted to make sure she was singing it right, so she started singing to me over the phone.
âWhen she got through, she said, âIs the way Iâm singing it OK?â I answered, âDo you know that you could sing âMy Dog has Fleasâ and I would love it?â We both laughed, and sure enough, that song landed on her next album. What an incredible honor, to have a song on both of her last two albums.â
Credit: Neal_Grillot
Credit: Neal_Grillot
Kight is no stranger to accolades. She received the Georgia Music Legend award in 2013, and when she appeared on Garrison Keillorâs âPrairie Home Companion,â its website was assailed by so many hits it had to shut down.
Based in her hometown of Dublin, Kight is touring to promote her latest album and a childrenâs book. âThe Trio Sessions,â which she started in 2019 and then put on hold during the pandemic, was released to cicada-like buzz, debuting in the top 15 on the blues and roots charts and landing on the Top 40 Blues albums of 2021. It also racked up nominations for Best Acoustic Album by both the Blues Foundation and Blues Blast Magazine among other honors.
âShe is honest and true and completely unique,â says blues critic Donald Wilcock, who has followed her since the 1990s. âWillie Dixon, a majordomo, said the blues is truth, and no one better defines its truth than EG.â
For âThe Trio Sessions,â her ninth album, Kight and âthe boys,â as she affectionately calls Wynn and longtime drummer Gary Porter, sat in a circle in the same room instead of in isolated recording stations.
âWhen weâre sitting near each other, we feel more connected and feed off of each other in the moment,â she says. âWeâve played together so long that we can read one another and feel where the other one is going. Collaborating is as natural as breathing. I believe it comes off as more of a âliveâ feel.ââ
The resulting harmonies showcase the bandâs easy, sibling-like chemistry.
âThe way EG is on stageâ â warm, folksy, earthy â âis the way she is 24/7,â says Porter, whom Kight has, for some reason known only to her, nicknamed âSpoog.â âThereâs nothing put-on with her. Sheâs as real as they come.â
The album features mostly originals, including one she co-wrote with Johnny Neel of the Allman Brothers Band. If these songs have a through-line, it is the traditional blues lament of rocky relationships: the trouble with a âhard-headed manâ; the sweet freedom of leaving a toxic union; and the metaphorical vow never to touch a hot stove again. (Fans have started to holler requests for the âstove song.â) She also covers some standards: âEvilâ by Willie Dixon; Robert Johnsonâs âCome on in my Kitchenâ; and Leonard Cohenâs âHallelujah.â
Standing 5-foot-4, Eugenia Gail Kight, with feathered hair and a no-bull tomboy vibe, is a compact dynamo born in a year sheâd rather not disclose. She has never taken formal music lessons, but she grew up steeped in her familyâs tuneful influences, and, as is the case with most Southern arts, antics in church played a role early on.
âMy mama was offered a contract to go out on the road singing gospel music when I was a baby but turned it down to be a wife and mother,â Kight recalls. âWhen I was around 3 years old, she took me with her to practice with her church trio. While I was sitting there listening to them, I started harmonizing, and the pianist noticed and asked me if I would sing a special song the next morning in church.
âSo the next day I sang âHeâs Got the Whole World in His Hands,â and when I finished, I bowed to the audience. Mama said she knew in that moment that Iâd be an entertainer.â Her Uncle Jimmy, who had a rock band, gave her a guitar when she was 4, and her grandmother taught her some chords. Soon enough, Kight was obsessively noodling around, channeling youthful angst into lyrics.
Credit: Bonnie R. Gehling
Credit: Bonnie R. Gehling
âI never wanted to put the guitar down,â she says. âIt was bigger than me, and I wore out a path dragging it to grandmaâs house every day.â (Nowadays, she prefers a smaller, scaled-down Taylor.)
Her first song? ââI Really Do Love You,â and not long after that I wrote âAlone Too Long.â These songs came from a heartbreak I had as a teenager in love, and theyâre about when my best friend stole my guy away from me. But I should thank them because they really started something great.â
She originally planned a more practical career path.
âAfter high school I was just getting ready to start studying in the medical field, because I always loved science and wanted to be a lab technician,â she says. âBut thatâs when I got a call to go to Nashville to record some music. That kind of opportunity was kind of unheard of back then, and I jumped at the chance â and havenât looked back.â
She began opening for George Jones, Merle Haggard and Jerry Lee Lewis. âThis Southern songbird has as much Patsy Cline and Merle Haggard in her as she does her blues mentor Koko Taylor, and that makes her songs about a life lived with bumps in the road a form of medicine thatâs smooth and effective,â writes Wilcock.
The first time she heard Taylor wail âEvil,â though, âit was a life-changing moment. It just tickled me to death. I knew I wanted to feel as deeply as she did. Thatâs when I started singing those blues songs, and they became more popular than my country act.â So Kight made the switch â less twang, more moan.
When she is not gigging or recording, she enjoys a pastoral life on land that has been in her family for four generations. It is home to 11 goats, one of which is disabled.
âI had a pet goat when I was around 10 years old that walked around everywhere with me, and I would even bring her in the house to watch television. I would dress her up with beads and a hat and folks would come from near and far to take our picture.â Bored during the pandemic and unable to livestream because of a slow internet connection, she wrote a charming childrenâs book: âThings I Learned from a Goatâ (BookBaby, $19.99), filled with photos of her âkidsâ accompanied by her homespun wisdom. âGoats are comical, and they remind me of the circle of life,â she says. âBesides, the goats are better-lookinâ than any of the men in Laurens County!â
(The elusiveness of a good man is one of the single ladyâs recurring themes, onstage and off.)
Now, though, Kight is back in the studio, âcooking up a new stew,â no doubt seasoned generously with long-simmering ham hocks.
âI donât think I chose the blues,â she says. âThe blues chose me.â
CONCERT PREVIEW
EG Kight. 8 p.m. May 20. $33. Randy Wood Pickinâ Parlor, 1304 U.S. 80, Bloomingdale. 912- 748-1930, randywoodmusic.com. For more on EG Kight, go to EGKight.com.
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