Delbert McClinton - Jealous Kind/Plain from the Heart (CD)

All Music Guide

This two-fer from the Australian Raven label is a part of a series of Delbert McClinton reissues. All of them come with new liner notes, session photos, and bonus tracks. These two albums, from 1980 and 1981, respectively, represent a renaissance for McClinton of sorts. While he never had a fallow period creatively, The Jealous Kind allowed him a renewed commercial viability even if it was short-lived. Both records were issued by the Muscle Shoals Sound imprint of Capitol Records and were produced by Barry Beckett with the Muscle Shoals rhythm section and horns. While the first disc is centered around diversity in its song choices -- by everyone from Larry Henley to Bobby Charles to Van Morrison to Al Green to Jerry Williams -- and took radical approaches to reinterpreting the material through soul, blues, funk, rock, and country, the latter chose hard-driving Southern-fried funk and RB and a relatively close-to-the-vest approach in terms of material -- most notably covers of "In the M...idnight Hour" and Naomi Neville's "Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette)." The material is strong and inspired, but the best cuts are the two McClinton contributed himself -- the acid blues of "I Wanna Thank You Baby" and the soulful mid-tempo ballad "Sandy Beaches." Nonetheless, it's a tough album full of great performances. In addition to the two albums, three tracks from McClinton's classic Love Rustler LP are included -- "As Long as I Got You," Tony Joe White's "Hold on to Your Hiney," and a stirring wooly version of Jimmie Rodgers' "In the Jailhouse Now." - Thom Jurek, All Music Guide Read more Less