with Pinetop Perkins, Mel Brown, Jeff Healey, Bob Stroger & Willie "Big Eyes" Smith.

Snooky Pryor's been awfully prolific of late, having released a number of fine discs on a bewildering array of labels over the course of the last 10 years. One might reasonably expect him to be slowing down by now, given these sessions were recorded in honour of his 80th(!!!) birthday,

Yet while Pryor may inevitably be in the twilight of his career, you'd never know it from the exuberant energy he pours into every note here. He seems, if anything, to be getting younger and more vigorous with each outing, and this CD may well be his best yet.

When it comes to classic post-war Chicago blues, Pryor may well be its greatest living exponent. Certainly there are very few who've had such a profound impact on the music's development; Pryor claims to have been the very first to play amplified harmonica, broadcasting himself over camp radio while in the air force and in the process defining what electric blues would come to sound like.

With only a smattering of sides here and there, Pryor remained sadly under-recorded until his late-career renaissance. Here, he's teamed up once more with veteran Mel Brown, with whom he recorded 2000's Double Shot, also on Electro-Fi. The rest of the cast reads like a "blues who's who", savvy veterans all including pianist Pinetop Perkins, who at 88 is Pryor's only senior, along with bassist Bob Stroger and drummer Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, both of whom were with Muddy during his later years. Guesting is relative youngster Jeff Healey, who contributes guitar to three tracks.

These gentlemen bring a great deal of experience to the table, and the fact is blues simply doesn't get much better than this. True, there's nothing terribly new here, and if you're a long-time blues fan you probably have a lot of material that, superficially at least, sounds similar.

Pryor takes writing credits for six of the disc's 10 tracks, but again, he's working with classic forms, and his "originals" don't sound all that different than the covers, nor from tunes you've heard a gazillion times before. But Pryor is wily enough to throw in a few surprises here and there making these tunes all his own. Tradition may not leave a great deal of room for originality, but there's ample room for personality, and that's what sets Pryor apart - his ability to put his own unmistakable stamp on things.

Pryor's style is raw, unpolished, raucously rough-and-tumble, but he plows through everything with such unbridled glee and energetic enthusiasm that technique isn't an issue at all. He favours a harmonica style that's deceptive in its simplicity (it's a lot harder than it sounds!), and simply roars his way through the vocals with his patented quiver still very much intact.

There are, of course, many who say blues "all sounds the same, and it's all been done before." But the beauty of a finite form lies in how artists manage to create something of their own while working within the established parameters. Give this one a listen, and there's no doubt whatsoever that it's Pryor through and through.

On that basis alone this one would be absolutely essential. That it also just happens to be one of the best, most gut-wrenching and butt-kicking blues parties around is icing on the cake.

Get it!

Copyright 2003. Review by John Taylor.