New Corey Harris...soon

From the desk of Ned P. Rauch:

Corey Harris has a new record coming out in a few weeks. It's called "blu.black" and, if the past is any indication, ought to be pretty damn good. Pete knows Harris' work a lot better than I do, but I dig him, too, and would recommend him to anyone who wants to keep the Blues from ossifying. Harris is at the front of a group of Blues-based musicians who are pushing the form forward with a deep regard for but without a stultifying adherance to the past. So he's cool.

He's also a genius. In 2007 he received a MacArthur Fellowship, aka Genius Award, from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Know who else picked up a Genius Award that year? Cheryl Hayashi, a spider silk biologist, Paul Rothemund, a nanotechnologist, Mercedes Doretti, a forensic anthropologist, and about 20 others.

(Photo of Corey Harris from somewhere on the Internet.)