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foot tapping. The minor key blues ‘What The Devil Loves’ is lifted with some outstanding
Hammond organ sounds and the guitar work has shades of Larry McCray. ‘Trip Hammer’ wow
what a boogie, it brought to mind Rory Gallagher’s ‘In Your Town’ no less.

There are hints of Howlin’ Wolf in the vocal of ‘Evil (Do Right By You)’ and there is a definite
Fabulous Thunderbirds vibe going on with ‘Ain’t Got The Scratch’. The album closes with
‘Showdown’ which has a different, nice mellowed-out jazz feel to it, hints of Ronny Jordan and
Robben Ford.

This album has been well put together, the instrumentation is exemplary throughout. The
songs are well constructed from start to finish. The vocals are warm and light with good
diction so that you can get into the lyrics. This album is also a great example of what top
American blues bands get so right; the ability to lay down a basic groove that is both unobtru-
sive and swings. The guitar work from Jim and Buddy is outstanding, they are both economical

with their playing making every note count and there’s no guitar noodling going on here!

The Texas scratch is a style of guitar picking that I first came across with the Fabulous
Thunderbirds and is much in evidence here on this album. You will also hear shades of Johnny
Winter and Billy Gibbons throughout this album so if Texas blues is your ‘thang’ then this is
the album for you.

Ged Wilson

Various Artists—Playing for the Man at the Door—Smith-
sonian Folkways ASIN : B0BTL7J2F4

Robert ‘Mack’ McCormick was a blues song collector in the
1950s and 60s in the “greater Texas area” -western Louisiana,
Alabama, Mississippi and parts of Oklahoma and Arkansas.
However, unlike other song collectors he didn’t publish his field
recordings and this 3-CD, 66-track collection has only now been
issued by Smithsonian Folkways. At around £65 it isn’t cheap
and I couldn’t really say that these are ‘essential’ recordings,
there are several tracks by Sam Lightnin’ Hopkins, Mance
Lipscomb, CeDell Davis, Hop Wilson but the majority of the tracks here are by lesser-known
performers. It is quite nice to hear Lightnin’ and the others in these informal settings, which
are probably more like their club performances than their formal studio recordings.

However, for me the real stars here are the unknown performers who make up for their lack
of technique and innovation by their great down-home charm - listen to pianists Robert Shaw,
Kid Wiggins and Allen Van. Several performers here have obviously learned their songs from
records – pianist Grey Ghost’s ‘One Room Country Shack’ and ‘Little Red Rooster’, guitarist
James Tisdom’s ‘I Feel So Good’ and Long Gone Miles’ ‘Rock Me Baby’. However, others
contribute original humorous songs – Dennis Gainus’s ‘You Gonna Look Like a Monkey’ and
Edwin ‘Buster’ Pickens’ ‘Groceries on My Shelf (Piggly Wiggly)’ and James Stanchell’s powerful
‘Don’t Do Me No Small Favors (Help the Bear)’. There is great variety here and as well as the
guitarists and pianists we have Billy Bizor doing a harmonica ‘Fox Chase’, the Spiritual Light
Gospel Group singing gospel, Joe Patterson demonstrating ‘quills’ and a Cajun version of ‘St.
James Infirmary’ by Dudley Alexander.