“Back to the Bridge” (1994) – Asie Payton * Trad. arrangement by Asie Payton * CD: Just Do Me Right (2002) * Recorded by Matthew Johnson * Label: Fat Possum
In the 2002 documentary You See Me Laughin’, Fat Possum Record owner Matthew Johnson explains how he’d need to wait for rainy weather to persuade Asie Payton of Holly Springs, Mississippi, to get off of his tractor long enough to make some recordings. In 1994, three years before Payton would die of a heart attack, Johnson was able to round up enough tracks for two posthumous CDs: Worried (1999) and Just Do Me Right (2002). On certain songs, such as “Back to the Bridge,” Payton has a way of digging into a groove that tunnels through his own Delta dirt straight into the earth’s fiery core. The track drips with originality, but the album notes credit it (and all the others) as a traditional arrangement. Maybe that’s just a matter of headache relief. All songs, after all, are carried by “Big Legal Mess Publishing,” which is probably as truthful as a company title can get. The last song on the Just Do Me Right album is a worthy remix of “Back to the Bridge”—maybe Beck listened to it before doing “E-Pro.”