Big Harp George: Cut My Spirit Loose

photo: Emilia Rosales

George Bisharat is building an impressive stack of blues albums as a chromatic harmonica ace and singer, who goes by the name Big Harp George. On his new album Cut My Spirit Loose he swings like never before, overjoyed to be able to go out and make music again with a few of San Francisco Bay Area finest sidemen backing him up. He kicks off with It's Tuesday, recorded at the height of the pandemic in 2021 when the arrival of the garbage men reminded him what day it was. Even then he kept an optimistic outlook on life, bonding with the men who picked up the trash, albeit from a safe, social distance. Bisharat is an outgoing guy and he shows it with tributes to night life like Give Me The Dark and Behind The Eight Ball.

As a former lawyer he has a sharp eye for people falling on hard times (>Prince Of Downward Mobility) and rampant racism (Take A Knee), but as a whole Cut My Spirit Loose is all about reconnecting with his fellow humans, enabling to shoot the breeze (My Dog Is Better Than You) and being in love. The sole cover is his take on the Beatles rocker She's A Woman, which is turned into a brass heavy NOLA-tinged song with a walking bass.

Five albums in and he is on top of his game. With a band firing on all cylinders this collection of tight but loose tracks is a welcome addition to the shelf marked "blues" of any serious music collector.

Big Harp George: vocals, harmonics
June Core: drums, percussion
Derrick D’Mar Martin: drums, percussion
Joe Kyle, Jr.: bass
Jeff Lewis: trumpet
Ed Morrison: trumpet
Michael Peloquin: tenor and baritone sax
Mike Rinta: trombone, tuba
Doug Rowan: baritone sax
Ben Torres: flute
Lisa Leuchner Andersen, Lulu Bisharat, Loralee Christensen, Sons of the Soul Revivers (James Dwayne and Walter Morgan): backing vocals