There's also Stevie Ray's take on Guitar Slim in "The Things That I Used To Do"; it's an essay on the power and beauty of a slow-smoked Stratocaster. And John Lee Hooker's "I Ain't Gonna Suffer No More" lays its burden of heartache down so heavily, you feel it in the pit of your soul. (Slim himself appears two tracks later, crooning and stingin' through "It Hurts To Love Someone.") Like many blues fans, I've heard "Born Under a Bad Sign" and "The Thrill Is Gone" so many times I take them for granted. But when a disc like this comes along and teases me back into hearing those chestnuts, I'm thankful because I'm reminded again why I love the blues. Hell, why I love music. Hearing Albert King stretch his Flying V's strings into a red-eyed wail, hearing the gut-bucket fat-ass bottom beat, hearing him huff those words like a man who's been holding up too much of the world -- this is what it's like to be so low you feel cursed by God. And when the string section slips into "The Thrill Is Gone," soaring along with B.B. King's beautifully burnished voice, it's a sound so sweet my ears want to lift up from my head and float to Heaven.

-- Ted Drozdowski