Johnny Nicholas – Livin’ With The Blues

Drawing on top sidemen from Austin and San Antonio, Johnny Nicholas puts together R&B horn bands like nobody else. He also plays biting, incisive guitar and rollicking, boogie piano, and sings blues without affectation. Original songs such as “Froggy Bottom” (which takes its rugged riff from Detroit guitarist Calvin Frazier), “Teardrops On My Windowpane” and “Dirty People” are simultaneously contemporary and right in the traditions they work, while remakes of Howlin’ Wolf’s “I’ll Be Around”, Roosevelt Sykes’ “You Can’t Be Lucky All The Time” and Little Willie John’s “Need Your Love So Bad” (here a duet with Marcia Ball) do their sources proud. For this album, Nicholas, who had a stint with Asleep At The Wheel in the late ’70s, adds western swing to his usual Gulf Coast mix. But he shines brightest on a shimmering swamp-pop performance, Tommy McLain’s “Texas Drifter”.