| Superstitious Blues | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Country Joe McDonald |
| Cover: | Superstitious Blues.jpg |
| Released: | 1991 |
| Studio: | Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, California |
| Genre: | Country folk, folk blues |
| Label: | Rykodisc[1] |
| Prev Title: | Best of Country Joe McDonald: The Vanguard Years (1969–1975) |
| Prev Year: | 1990 |
| Next Title: | Carry On |
| Next Year: | 1995 |
Superstitious Blues is an album by the American musician Country Joe McDonald, released in 1991.[2] [3] Although McDonald had played then-recent anti-Gulf War rallies, the album is made up of personal, not political, songs. McDonald considered making Superstitious Blues his final album; it was his first album in 12 years to be distributed by a label other than his own.[4] [5]
Jerry Garcia played guitar on the album; Sandy Rothman contributed dobro.[6] "Eunecita" was written in 1971, but remained unrecorded for almost two decades.[7] "Clara Barton" is a tribute to the founder of the American Red Cross; "Blues for Michael" is about Mike Bloomfield.[8] [9] McDonald was supposed to sing at the 1991 American Red Cross annual convention, but was uninvited due to his Gulf War protest.[5] McDonald, in contrast to some of his peers, was happy to employ digital recording during the making of the album.[10]
Entertainment Weekly called the album "both uneven and surprising," but acknowledged that the McDonald-Garcia "guitar team-up on the pretty country-folk tune 'Standing at the Crossroads' is a blissful pleasure." The Boston Globe wrote that, "in backing McDonald, [Garcia] returns to fluid acoustic musings that evoke the Dead's American Beauty and Workingman's Dead."[11]
The Sun Sentinel determined that "the shift from broader politics to personal themes reflects McDonald's maturation both as an artist and an activist."[6] The Philadelphia Inquirer called the album "poignant, pretty and powerful, yet almost understated... Its songs range from the moody, moderately psychedelic instrumental 'Tranquility' to 'Standing at the Crossroads', a country waltz."[7] The State concluded that "the beauty of this disc is its simplicity ... McDonald combines those old bay area psychedelic sentiments with deep-rooted blues."
AllMusic deemed it "an excellent comeback album."