Thibeaux Steak-Out Dept.

Note strap over right shoulder. Note slub silk suit, display kerchief. Note turtleneck. Perfection.

T-Bone Walker got his name from a sly play on his middle name, Thibeaux. Perfect. As a kid he guided Blind Lemon Jefferson around Dallas. Perfect. He quit school at ten to become a musician, and was playing the blues clubs professionally at fifteen. Perfect. He pioneered amplified electric blues guitar and had a riotous stage show using techniques later copied by Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix. There is nothing the guy did that's less than perfect. But what gives him a unique edge is his cool, jazz-inflected delivery. From slow blues (Stormy Monday is his) to juke joint jumps, everything he did was fun and swung like a donkey's nuts. Not for him the anguished howls of the oppressed, the flirting with the dark side. T-Bone put on a show, but he could sing like smoke curling from a cigarette, like silk stockings slipping off a warm thigh.

Luckily for us, he left a bunch of swell records behind so we can have our own T-Bone show whenever we want. T-Bone Jumps Again is an impeccably compiled and fantastic-sounding collection.  Like, digsville!