Soledad Brothers “Soledad Brothers” 2000. Estrus Records. Soledad Brothers is the first label-released album by the Ohio-based duo named for three incarcerated members of the Black Panthers. It’s garagey punk-blues, with a pinch of Southern gospel preacher (the LP’s second track, “The Weight of the World” is Jon Spencer-level fervency). The lo-fi buzz of Soledad Brothers is, not surprisingly, very White-Stripey; Jack White engineered the LP and Meg White is billed as the “3rd Soledad Brother,” playing drums on a few of the tracks. Citing inspiration from the great John Lee Hooker, songs like “Lovin’ Machine” and the mournful “Shining Path” skew very traditional Delta blues while other tracks like “Handle Song” recall the blues as filtered through the British Invasion lens.

Poet, blues scholar (and manager of the MC5) John Sinclair penned the liner notes for the LP. He writes, “Guitarist and vocalist Johnny Walker and drummer Ben Swank pay serious tribute to the three legendary black revolutionaries, not only assuming their name but honoring the black liberation struggle with a stripped-down, seriously raucous blues attack deeply rooted in the rawest idioms of the African American musical tradition…The Soledad Brothers are no cornball blues revival act but make a fresh, idiosyncratic, soulful extension of the blues into their own life experience and out into the world at large.”