Louisiana Red
's career was stalled by the '70s, partly because he still hadn't really found his own blues voice, sounding like
Muddy Waters
more than anything, but things turned around when he signed with
Blue Labor Records
.
Blue Labor
was run by a pair of musicians, jazz arranger
Kent Cooper
and composer
Heiner Stadler
, and they saw in
Red
not another
, but something closer to
Lightnin' Hopkins
or
John Lee Hooker
, and they helped
find his own voice through four albums for the label in the '70s, including this one recorded in 1975, which features
solo and acoustic, and doing original material (a lot of it co-penned by
Cooper
). The no-frills recording approach makes this one of
's best and most original albums, and combined with the previous album on
,
Sweet Blood Call
, it formed a sturdy one-two template for
's re-launched recording career. ~ Steve Leggett