The album starts with the by Ray Charles and later Joe Cocker made famous "Unchain My Heart" - a rather surprising, but interesting choice added. This piece comes Johnny's well aged, now very mature and warmer sounding voice to best advantage - otherwise the piece is unfortunately overproduced, too many wind instruments, too many women's choirs;) After this so rather unusual start immerse yourself in the what Johnny Winter became famous: blues, blues rock and partly rock'n'roll at its best. I would like to highlight here, for example, "Who do you love", "Where can you be", the blue rock in due southern style, the class blues "Sweet Sixteen" and "Mojo Hand". In all these and other pieces comes Johnny's guitar playing, especially the game on the slide guitar for the last time very good effect. His licks are still unique and you can hear and feel the love of the protagonist for Blues. The guests provide from rock-solid performance and harmony always good in the overall arrangement (VA Billy Gibbons on "Where can you be" and the class Bluesharper Jason Ricci in "My Babe").
The pearl of the album, however, is "Death Letter". Johnny again pur - just acoustic guitar and vocals! This is reminiscent of old days and songs like "Dallas" from his Columbia debut album or "TV Mama" of "Nothing but the blues" and is these classics in every way. As before Johnny's guitar playing can be seen in its uniqueness especially in this piece. Surely he was not quite as nimble last, as in his best days, and in some places the game is a bit unclear. However, I can say that this version of "Death Letter" will be definitely one of my absolute favorite pieces from Johnny extensive canon now. Just great!
Overall, a very very good blues rock album that brings consistently great musical moments. The sound is good, the dynamics is acceptable (you have to repeatedly in times of Loudness Wars yes to point). In addition, the cover is very good and rounds Johnny's last studio work well off (and certainly: the printed signature with pick is again a nice little bonus).
Access and enjoy!
