It’s been a while since we’ve mentioned Louisiana bluesman Tab Benoit here, but not nearly as long as it’s been since Benoit’s latest release, Blues Masters Live (Acoustic Sounds/Whiskey Bayou Records), was actually recorded, capturing, as it does, an October 2002 performance by Benoit at Salina, Kansas’ Blue Heaven Studios as part of the Fifth Annual Blues Masters at the Crossroads concert series.
The first performance from the concert series to be released, Benoit’s set–presented as a double LP–is a smoking one, kicking off on a chugging ” Muddy Bottom Blues” and shuffling “Her Mind is Gone” (Professor Longhair) before slowing things down with a slow-burning “Nice and Warm” that features some Albert Collins-like licks.
As good a start as that is, things only get better from there, with side two of the first album hitting first on a funky “Let Love Take Control” and then on scorching covers from two more Louisiana greats in the grooving “Dog Hill” (Boozoo Chavis) with its calls of “where the pretty women at?” and some particularly stinging playing from Benoit, including some fiery strumming of muted guitar strings to simulate Chavis’ zydeco washboard at times, followed by the always entertaining “I Got Loaded” (Lil’ Bob and the Lollipops) that has Benoit trading vocals with the singing drummer Lil’ Bob himself in an 8-minute romp that’s about as much fun as you can have in a recording.
A lively “Mardi Gras Medley” of “Jambalaya (on the Bayou),” “Iko Iko”, and “When the Saints Go Marching In” and slow, scorching “Cherry Tree Blues” offer a few other highlights, with a swaying “Louisiana Style”, rocking “Crawfishin'” and the blazing closer “Bayou Boogie” rounding out this spectacular set that shows Benoit was already quite a blues master almost a quarter of a century ago.