For those unaware, flames engulfed Birmingham, Alabama bluesman Charles “Sugar Harp” Burroughs’ van, packed with all of his belongings and instruments. Sugar acted on instinct, jumping out of the moving vehicle, and rolling on the ground to extinguish the fire that had spread and caught onto his jacket.

It was close to Thanksgiving, 2019. Sugar was completely distraught, and soon thereafter, when the pandemic hit, he worried he might be done playing the harmonica for good.

But a year and a half later, with the help of a few friends, Sugar had a new ride, a set of harmonicas, and was on stage at the prestigious Telluride Blues & Brews Festival — and now sees his debut album Sugar Is My Name, set for release via Music Maker Foundation.

The album will be available on CD exclusively to the Music Maker Listeners Circle on June 1st, 2022 and will be available to the general public streaming July 1st, 2022.

As they say, the Listeners Circle makes Music Maker’s recordings possible.

1. Sugar Is My Name (2:51)
2. Special Recipe (5:11)
3. How Come My Dog Don’t Bark (4:07)
4. I Don’t Want A Soul Hangin’ Round (4:22)
5. Lemon-Squeezin’ Fool (3:07)
6. May Your Soul Make It To Heaven (5:07)
7. My Truck My Dog My Wife (3:50)
8. Leave Me The Same Way You Came (5:22)
9. Mojo Hand (3:28)
10. Murder Murder Murder (4:49)

The album opens on the informative titular blues track Sugar Is My Name and the raw, slow Southern crawl of Special Recipe and then comes the emotive How Come My Dog Don’t Bark, the earnestly reaching I Don’t Want A Soul Hangin’ Round (a retitled B.B. King hit from 1966) and the funky guitar and harmonica duet Lemon-Squeezin’ Fool.

Next up is one of my own personal favorites from this new collection, the spaciously emotive, layered May Your Soul Make It To Heaven and the gentle blues breeze of My Truck My Dog My Wife, the low key Leave Me The Same Way You Came, the album rounding out on the atmospherically-charged rawness of Mojo Hand, coming to a close within the long blues shadow of Murder Murder Murder.

When Charles Burroughs was 8 years old in Tampa, Florida, his great-grandfather would simultaneously blow harp and strum a handmade guitar formed from an orange crate and broomsticks. Charles would say, “Grandaddy, I need to do that.”

If you witness what Charles describes as his “down in the gutter, back alley, storytelling blues” today, you’ll know he inherited his great-grandfather’s creativity and musical talent. In the decades since he first picked up the harmonica, he has more than earned his moniker, Sugar Harp.

His original lyrics are a little raunchy, full of innuendo but always clever, such as on the slow and steady “Special Recipe,” the rumba blues “Lemon-Squeezin’ Fool,” and the laugh-out-loud “My Truck My Dog My Wife,” with a groove that reminds one of Billy Boy Arnold or Junior Wells.

Sugar guides listeners to draw their own conclusions, never saying anything X-rated outright, keeping his shows technically family-friendly but keeping the audience cracking up.

In addition to his original songs, as aforementioned, Sugar tackles B.B. King’s 1966 Billboard Top 100-charting hit “Don’t Answer the Door,” here retitled “I Don’t Want a Soul Hangin’ Round.”

The album also features Music Maker Blues Revue’s Ardie Dean on drums and Microwave Dave on guitar.

Official Purchase Link