Bought For A Dollar Sold For A Dime

A host of musical heavyweights assembled in the Big Room at Real World for this rare and privileged session, with all but the London-based McDonald and his co-producer, British dub maestro Adrian Sherwood, flying in from across the USA. Titans such as soul singer Bernard Fowler, whose voice has graced sets from The Rolling Stones, Sly and Robbie to Ryuichi Sakamoto. “Bernard’s voice has got everything. Its emotional, changeable and incredibly powerful. We call blues singers like him ‘elephants’, cause they sure know how to trumpet.”

Bought For a Dollar, Sold For a Dime boasts not one but two Tackhead covers. Take A Stroll – itself a cover of a 1930s blues track – is a rhythmic gumbo of dub-reggae and blues that “let us go back to our roots and rediscover ourselves.” The rousing, cinematic Hammerhead, a reworked chain gang song refreshed with gutsy horns, big blues voices and compelling female harmonies. “It’s all part of a body of music that I know can be confusing to some people,” says McDonald of his collectives various side projects (Bernard Fowler’s Bad Dog, Mark Stewart and the Mafia, and a reformed Tackhead among them). “It’s music as a lifestyle rather than music as a career.” “I understand the blues better now that I’m older,” he continues. “But doing this album…” He flashes a grin. “This album has made me feel young again.”