CeDell Davis is the latest aging bluesman outed by Fat Possum Records, the Oxford, Mississippi label whose artist roster is a veritable Who's Who of the very finest delta guitarists you've never heard of. Like many Fat Possum artists, Davis was born in the 1920s along the banks of the Mississippi River, and picked up the guitar at an early age. However, Davis' story strayed from the norm at age ten, when a bout with polio left his axe- wielding right hand twisted and useless. Though the illness rendered his left hand only slightly less damaged, Davis managed to hold a table knife in the gnarled appendage and slowly relearned the instrument, using the utensil's handle as a slide.

The dissonant result is at some times metallic and fuzzy, and at others as crisp as a conventional slide. Irrespective of his unique instrument's tonality, Davis' slightly off- kilter progressions and unique timing, coupled with his archetypal delta blues wail, create a stark and haunting musical landscape on tracks like "Murder My Baby," a dire warning to a perfidious lover, and a new version of The Horror of It All's "If You Like Fat Women," a social commentary on his Pine Bluff, Arkansas home.

Produced by blues legend Robert Palmer (no, the other one), the majority of Feel Like Doin' Something Wrong showcases Davis accompanied only by his blade and guitar. The album captures his emotive and disturbing sound most effectively against this spare backdrop. However, the three lively tracks featuring Davis backed by a band are no worse for their arrangements and Davis and Fat Possum labelmate, R.L. Burnside, acquit themselves quite well on their cover of John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillen."

Whether he set out to do so or not, Fat Possum label chief, Matthew Johnson has become as much a musical historian and cultural anthropologist as he has a businessman. His label's catalog preserves for eternity a generation of bluesmen quite nearly forgotten and will most likely survive far longer than its relative obscurity suggests. However, Johnson's ultimate success lies in his approach. Rather than that of a scholar or clinician, Johnson dons the battered cap of a blues fan in his endeavors, allowing his artists to shine in their own right. The result here is an album as listenable as it is timeless. Without Matthew Johnson, guitar players like CeDell Davis would go largely unheard. And without guitarists like CeDell Davis, there'd be a little less soul in the blues.

-Neil Lieberman