With each new release, the clothes of an old bluesman fit
Guy Davis
more and more comfortably. By now the
blues
are completely a part of who he is, so when he reworks an old
Sleepy John Estes
song into the opener,
"Limetown,"
it feels completely natural; even with the familiar
"Rollin' And Tumblin'"
riff. He mixes it up well between covers and originals, taking in quite a range -- there's
John Lee Hooker
,
Willie Dixon
, and
Blind Lemon Jefferson
all sitting amicably together in his style; as well as some pieces like
"Step It Up And Go"
that are just plain old. His own material is less familiar, of course, but just as good, with the careful (if not wholly accurate) patina of age about it. Perhaps the best thing about
Davis
is that he never tries to be something he's not; there's no fake Southern accent. What you hear is what you get. And while he's hardly the guitar genius that
Charley Patton
and
Robert Johnson
were, he's more than adequate, and his excellent band backs him up solidly and subtly, never stepping out too far. There's plenty of talent in
, but there's also an obvious and deep love for the
, especially the rural country
, and he brings to his music a real timelessness. The man just keeps getting better and better. ~ Chris Nickson