This white Clarksdale native uses the nebulous phrase “Mississippi Music” to answer that age-old interviewer question: what are your influences? It makes perfect sense in the context of this, his first true solo release, however: although the ghosts of the blues loom large over these dozen more-or-less originals, as befits the famous city they were recorded in, this is no wistful sepia snapshot of a bygone era. In fact, the music here sounds an awful lot like the history of Magnolia State sounds, from R&B to soul to funk, all playing at the same time. In other words, Mississippi Music. The world can officially stop thinking of him as the Squirrel Nut Zippers leader now.

If the prospect of all those styles bouncing off one another sounds a little messy, never fear: Mathus has so fully integrated all these elements into his own personal style that it’s often hard to tell exactly what you’re responding to. Is “Let Me Be Your Rocker” a straight Southern-rock stomp or a Muddy outtake? Is “Skateland” real country or Rolling Stones country? Is the voodoo-chile locomotion of “Boogie Music,” “Rolling Like A Log,” and the traditional “Mule Plow Line” more kin to the Allmans or Walter “Wolfman” Washington? In fact, the lines blur so much sometimes it’s hard to find Mississippi artists for comparison, even though none of these songs could have existed without them. Exhibit A: the outstanding ballad “Loose Diamonds,” which sounds like Tom Waits covering O.C. Smith with Otis’ horn section. You don’t put those elements together without genuinely loving them all.

It doesn’t hurt that Mathus is surrounded by a large, shifting cadre of the area’s finest musicians—call it the Plastic Jimbo Band—that also happens to contain many Fat Possum all-star sessionmen. Some have accused that label of mistaking sloppiness with authenticity, but these cats are in the pocket here; in fact, given the ease in which they blend these styles into a seamless whole, perhaps we should stop thinking of this crew as an anomaly but a bona-fide regional movement. Here’s living proof that no genre of music—including the blues—ever really dies.