Autoportrait

Description

Hugues Aufray’s new “Opus” is called Autoportrait. And indeed, the album cover is the artist’s almost Christ-like face, painted on two reclaimed wooden planks in 1999. The twelve songs contained in the album, in fact, retain the striking traits generally attributed to the eternal Troubadour: a search for our roots, and a special attention to the “little people,” more particularly those who sweated blood and water to allow others to nestle in and grow within the famous American Way of Life. The record also opens with the only real contract that binds the rich to the poor: the question of money: in Paie-moi ce que tu m'dois, a negro spiritual, the sailor orders his captain to settle the arrears owed to him. The heroic John Henry - exemplary rail layer who pays with his life to remind us that “man is not a robot” - the unfortunate “Swagman,” a passing laborer, offers us the sharing of La Mathilda, and wouldn’t that old gambler Dan Tucker be an autoportrait! We also wander through the styles and cross paths with the figures who have always brought them to life for our ears: Lead Belly, Josh White, The Weavers, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash, Tom Waits, and Mississippi John Hurt. Hugues concludes the album with a hopeful Hasta Luego that announces a new departure for the singer on the road, a sign of brotherhood in the setting sun. For this record of wind, sea, river, and earth draws the singer’s portrait with such precision that there is never any mistake: we have indeed just conversed with Hugues Aufray, the man with storm-soled shoes. A magnificent cover of Stewball in a duet with Michael Jones is also featured on the album.