This came out in 2003 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Just like the vintage car he’s perched on in the cover picture of his latest CD, bluesman John Hammond is an American classic.
Son of a legendary music talent scout, Hammond has been singing and playing and touring and recording for four decades. Which makes it all the more surprising that Slick Crown Vic, the gnarly little number that opens Ready For Love, is apparently the first (and only) song he’s ever written. For a novice, he doesn’t do too bad. Then again, he has plenty of help — everyone from Los Lobos guitarist David Hidalgo and Sir Douglas Quintet / Texas Tornados keyboardist Augie Meyers to Tom Waits had a hand in the playing and writing of this album, imbuing oldies like Gin Soaked Boy, Money Honey and Spider And The Fly with a humid, swampy grit — not to mention lumpy, stomping beats that shuck and jive like a juke joint on payday. Really, though, the superstar cameos and hipster-cool production are icing. The cake? Hammond’s earthy voice, soulful harp and tasteful picking. And as long as he’s got those, he’ll never run out of gas.
