Album Notes

Nominated for two 2004 W.C. Handy Awards!
- Best Acoustic Blues Album
- Best New Artist Debut


Mark Lemhouse's debut release delivers string-strangling,
gut-rocking blues ecstasy. Lemhouse reaches into a wicked toolbox - containing resonator chainsaw, electric tube-amp machete, and bottleneck auger - to uproot blues tradition with a vandal's glee.

Recorded to analog tape with vintage mics at Easley/McCain Studios in Memphis, Big Lonesome Radio has a gritty feel that's more akin to a Howlin' Wolf or Jimmy Reed than a young man playing the blues in the 21st century has a right to sound.

Melding together influences from Delta blues, Piedmont rag-style forms, and North Mississippi trance blues, Lemhouse's notes come across like crackling radio transmissions from a time gone by.


"There's not a single iota of pseudo-blues here. Lemhouse is the real deal, and Big Lonesome Radio should give blues lovers hope for the future of the genre."
--Blues Revue

Top 10 "Best Blues" Albums of the Year...
--MOJO Magazine

"Striking debut... Lemhouse convincingly breaks free of the revivalist pack."
--The Commercial Appeal

"One of the year's best local blues releases... a consistently reverent but playful journey through the blues tradition."
--The Memphis Flyer

"The kind of record that can reassure your faith that the blues is a still vital and thriving music... a stunning set of traditional blues played with utter authenticity, grit and passion."
--Jeff Harris, Bad Dog Blues

"Roots blues should always sound this good..."
--Roots Music Report

"Irrepressible, energetic barrelhouse music... Lemhouse's playing is raucous, rhythmic, very rough, and always right."
--Minor 7th

"Very funky National guitar and electric playing. Authentic deep tone and chops. I'm very impressed."
--Bob Margolin

"Mark Lemhouse came to Memphis and Lord knows what he had in mind, but before he left, music got a-holt of him."
--Robert Gordon, author, "Can't Be Satisfied"