Doug Sahm - T-Bone shuffle (live)

"T-Bone shuffle" is possibly Doug Sahm's piece-de-resistance; he's been playing it since way back when and recorded it more times that I can count. In this latter respect he emulates some of the big blues singers who were often inclined to revisit their best material on record as well as on stage. The song, of course, came from T-Bone Walker, the man who invented electric guitar in a blues context - no disrespect to BB but T-Bone came first. This one number tells you more about uptown Texan Blues than any other single record. Doug pays respect to the master but still manages to put his stamp on the song. The album "The Last Real Texas Blues Band featuring Doug Sahm" was effectively a belated follow-up to 1989's "Juke Box Music" even though it came out five years later. Although the initial impression you might have gotten was that of a blues album, in fact the proportion of songs that you could call straight blues differs little between the two albums, for example there's a Guitar Slim and a Bobby Bland track on each and Doug even revisits a couple of the songs from the first set. The source of songs this time around is still mainly the black R&B sector in the fifties with the occasional excursion outside that date range. The musicians are assembled into a big band with arrangements from Doug himself. Composition of the band does vary from song to song but many of the performers are familiar from the earlier album. Musicians who appear, include: Doug Sahm - Vocals, Piano & Guitar Denny Freeman - Guitar Mel Brown - Piano & Hammond B-3 Louis Terrazas - Bass George Rains - Drums Rocky Morales - Tenor Sax Louis Bustos - Tenor Sax Charlie McBurney - Trumpet Mark "Kaz" Kazan off - Baritone Sax Sauce Gonzales - Hammond B-3 Derek O'Brien - Guitar Jack Barber - Bass & Background Vocals Al Gomez - Trumpet Jon Blondell - Trombone Production is from Doug Sahm and Derek O'Brien with Clifford Antone as Executive Producer. A number of the tracks were recorded live at Antone's nightclub in Austin, Texas. However the producers have done an excellent job and there's little difference in sound between the live and studio tracks. As a final note I believe that it's still possible to purchase the two albums as a "two-fer".