Delta Kream is the tenth album by American rock duo the Black Keys, released through Easy Eye Sound and Nonesuch Records on May 14, 2021. It is a cover album of hill country blues songs. It was preceded by the April 15 release of a cover of "Crawling Kingsnake", based on Junior Kimbrough's rendition.
Background, recording and packaging
The album was recorded "in about 10 hours" over two afternoons at Dan Auerbach's Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville at the end of the Let's Rock tour, with little planning and no advance rehearsals. It includes contributions from R. L. Burnside's guitarist Kenny Brown as well as Junior Kimbrough's bassist Eric Deaton; the Black Keys had previously covered Burnside's "Busted" and Kimbrough's "Do the Romp" (titled "Do the Rump") on their 2002 debut album The Big Come Up, and released the Kimbrough tribute album Chulahoma: The Songs of Junior Kimbrough in 2006.
In a statement, Auerbach said: "We made this record to honor the Mississippi hill country blues tradition that influenced us starting out. These songs are still as important to us today as they were the first day Pat and I started playing together and picked up our instruments."
The album cover features a 1970s photograph by William Eggleston of the Delta Kream shop in Tunica, Mississippi, with an Oldsmobile Cutlass parked outside – the shop no longer exists.