A marvelous soul vocalist, David Raitt teams up with guitar killer Jimmy Thackery on That’s It! Reunited for the first time since their high school blues band, the two middle-aged blues hounds get down to business on rough Chicago-styled offerings like their original “Tell Me,” Mack Rice’s jivey classic “Cheaper to Keep Her,” Roosevelt Sykes’ “Driving Wheel” and the funky Michael Bloomfield-Nick Gravenities tune “Me” along with Stax/Volt-styled R&B fare like “I’d Rather Be Blind, Crippled and Crazy.” Thackery is in particularly aggressive form on his slow blues “Watch Your Back” and on a raw, nasty rendition of Howlin’ Wolf’s “How Many More Years,” on which he also summons up a most menacing Wolf imitation on vocals. And Raitt swoops and swoons like a sanctified canary throughout. These two make a formidable tag team of the blues.
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