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Title: A Master Bluesman Digs Into His Own Roots
Review: Because he was perhaps the strongest crossover bluesman of his era, it's only too easy to question Jimmy Reed's legitimacy as a bluesman steeped in his native Delta region and delivering a soul of his own. Here, the man who was a master blues songwriter in his own write pays his own tribute to some of the blues which prodded him to have a whack at it. There's a reverence evident in his readings, but it isn't as overt as you might expect given Reed's trademark (and deceptive) easy grooving vocal and harmonica style. Listen carefully and you hear the feeling rippling in, the feeling of a man who's treating this music like he's its near-equal at last, rather than just another kid whom it made want to play the blues. And there's Eddie Taylor, as usual, feeding the harmonicameister in the manner to which he was long and brilliantly accustomed.
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