Gordon Smith & Simon "Honeyboy" Hickling - Bare Tracks (2002)

Another british blues guitar great is Gordon Smith. On Bare Tracks he teams up with Hickling to produce what is one of the best blues albums of the year from purely British players. The two players seem to be a blues marriage made in heaven, so well do their respective talents complement one another. Smith's splendid guitar technique is ably demonstrated on his own homage to Lonnie Johnson, the instrumental "Lonnie's Swing" and he also provides a superior version of Robert Johnson's "Good Friend", on which he also takes the lead vocal. Hickling ably supports on harp throughout and also lends his own particular brand of vocal exuberance to tracks like Jimmy Rogers ' "If It Ain't Me" and Sonny Boy II's "All My Love's In Vain". All in all, the 13 disparate acoustic blues renditions on Bare Tracks , from two artists operating at the peak of their talents, are an unalloyed joy from start to finish....TRACK LIST: 1. If It Aint Me 2. Highway 51, 3. Lonnie's Swing, 4. Sugar Mama, 5. Little Country Shack, 6. Lightnin's Boogie, 7. Good Friend, 8. C.C. Rider, 9. Louise, 10. Poor Boy, 11.Talking Woman Blues, 12. Bad Boy, 13.All My Love's In Vain,