(Soul Jazz)
The fear, confronted with a two-CD set celebrating the music of the Deep South in the early 70s, is that most of it will be taken up with guitar solos. Delta Swamp Rock duly features a couple of tracks from Lynyrd Skynyrd and three from the Allman Brothers, but soloing, choogling, boogying and other bearded self-indulgences are banished across 25 songs of soul- and country-inflected rock. Joe South's version of Hush is a dancefloor belter; Cher's foghorn of a voice is oddly suited to Dr John's I Walk on Gilded Splinters; Bobbie Gentry's contributions are a delight. The Skynyrd choices seem a bit odd at first ? one is sung by their original drummer, which is a bit like picking a Pete Best number to represent the Beatles on a compilation of British 60s rock ? but by being songs rather than instrumental showcases they serve the set far better than, say, Freebird would have. Delta Swamp Rock expertly merges the familiar and the forgotten to wonderful effect.
Ana Beatriz Barros Maria Menounos Shakira Leslie Bibb Chelsea Handler
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