Johnny Shines
Album: … with Big Walter Horton/Standing At The Crossroads
Label: Floating World
Tracks: 28
Website: http://www.floatingworldrecords.co.uk

One of blues' most powerful post-war stylists is celebrated on this double-disc reissue of two of his finest albums. But for those who only know Shines's work from his band-backed electric excursions, this pair of Testament albums will come as a revelation, the later one in particular. Admirers of Fred McDowell and the southern delta blues will be in their element here; Standing At The Crossroads, recorded in late 1970, is a refreshingly undiluted example of Shines' artistry, a bare-bones vox-and-guitar set on which Shines's purity of expression is at the forefront and on full display, a consummate master of reshaping and adapting traditional themes and musical forms to make his own music.

Classic cuts like Kind-Hearted Woman, Baby Sister Blues, Death Hearse Blues and the collection's title song could be regarded as unmatched in blues' recorded history, and while Shines clearly derived much inspiration from Robert Johnson and Son House, his slant on the delta style was defiantly individual while remaining respectful of, and especially sensitive to, his forebears. The earlier of the two albums, 1966's Johnny Shines With Big Walter Horton, places Shines' voice and guitar in the then-familiar ensemble format, but enable a greater variety of moods than hitherto by dint of the use of more diverse instrumental settings (involving two different trios - Otis Spann, Lee Jackson and Fred Belew or Luther Allison, Prince Candy and Bill Brown - backing the two protagonists).

These largely serve to pit Shines' own exemplary guitar work against Horton's distinctively voiced hootin' harmonica (most strongly in evidence on the two parts of the instrumental Sneakin' And Hidin' and the uptempo G.B. Blues). Shines' rendition of Worried Life Blues on this set is both a standout and a definitive recording. The booklet gives us the original sleeve note for Standing At The Crossroads, and personnel credits for both albums as you'd expect, but nothing else.

David Kidman