Of the many dozens of and artists who appeared on-stage at the 1973 , few were as old, experienced, or rambunctious as . Most of the people in the audience were young Americans whose awareness of Afro-American music hardly reached deeper than what might have made it onto television or commercial-driven radio. When appeared on-stage with a dapper brim and a long cigar, the young people cheered. When he sat at the piano and began testing the microphone by calling out a series of marvelously nonsensical phrases as if transmitting a coded message to someone in outer space, the thousands of pot-smoking, alcohol-tipping people in the audience laughed and shouted their approval. But when began manhandling the piano and singing the in his powerful voice, each and every person within earshot got a dose of the real thing; each listener was permanently transformed by this short, stocky piano player from Arkansas. His penchant for rocking, rolling, hollering, boogying, and woogying are here for all to savor and share, along with a cheerful romp that fairly bristles with lyrics of implied lewdness and lasciviousness. prefaced this number by warning his listeners that although the song wasn't intended to be smutty, "I have no control over your minds!" If toyed around with human sexuality, 's take on the topic was arresting. A veteran of many decades of professional activity (she came up in Texas, made her first recording in 1926, and founded her own record label in 1962), always sang about life and human nature using vivid images and uncommonly honest, accurate language. She was the antithesis of tippy-toe nicey-nice music; her "delicately" titled is a fine example of at her gutsiest and most uncompromising. This amazing disc is a document of the thriving music festival scene of the early to mid-'70s; it also preserves for posterity the late-in-life personas of two primal archetypes of North American music. ~ arwulf arwulf