A Blues-Rock Masterpiece

Last night, for the first time in a long while, something in me went still. Alone, a whiskey in hand, I put on Jamming with Edward!

I don't know how Western listeners rank this record. For me, it's one of the ten albums I'd take into my coffin.

"Edward" was Nicky Hopkins, and the whole thing is built around his piano, with Ry Cooder — a god of the slide — beside him. (Had the late Jeff Beck stayed with blues-rock, who knows. But that's another story.) Mick, Charlie and Bill step back into the shadows and simply hold the floor for these two. No Keith in the room — and that is the secret.

Blues-rock. Without players like these, the shape of everything that came after might have looked different. Chuck D once raised the question — "Who Stole the Soul?" — and even the road to Rap and Hip-Hop might have run elsewhere. It's all one river.

I can't say it all in a single day. But if you haven't heard this one yet — hear it.

To put ever-finer music in your hands — that is the mission of "The Creator." That is mine.