![Serve Me Right to Shuffle]({"https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51FRV37KTBL._SY450_.jpg":[450,450],"https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51FRV37KTBL._SY355_.jpg":[355,355],"https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51FRV37KTBL._SX466_.jpg":[466,466],"https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51FRV37KTBL._SX425_.jpg":[425,425],"https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51FRV37KTBL.jpg":[500,500]})
David Vest pounds the piano like Jerry Lee Lewis in his prime and writes lyrics that would make Dylan envious and George Bush furious. What more do you need to know? Oh yeah, Vest is surrounded by one of the tightest working band's around, featuring guitarists Alan Hager and Peter Dammon (one of the unsung heroes of contemporary blues) and harmonica titan Paul DeLay, who plays his arsenal of harps like he was possessed by the spirit of Little Walter. This music rocks hard, but that doesn't mean it's mindless (though there's nothing wrong with that, thank you Joey Ramone). Listen closely to the true tale told in "1948: Vanport Flood" and you'll learn a lot about race and the politics of disasters, an experience that is being repeated now in the birthplace of the blues, as developers and social engineers descend to captialize on the reconstruction and racial reconfiguration of the Gulf Coast in Katrina's Wake. If there's a better (or smarter) blues record released this year I haven't heard it.
Jeffrey St. Clair
Oregon City, Oregon