Collection (Two Disc Set)

Big Shanty’s thick and heavy sound crosses genre boundaries without restraint. Collection gathers live and studio tracks from his previous releases into one hellacious two-disc package. Shanty (a.k.a Dick Wooley) wields a wicked slide-guitar and possesses a defiant vocal snarl redolent of all-night roadhouses and biker-gang dens. He applies it to such gritty originals as “Whisky Woman,” “Walking Shoes” and “Ride With the Wind,” backed by a rotating cast of players including blistering guitarists Eddie Jett and Liz Melendez and muscle-flexing drummer Scott Robertson. Shanty’s brutal, emotionally raw sound is surprisingly versatile, extending from searing blues balladry (“Queen of Hearts Has Disappeared”) to frantic rockabilly (“Right Combination”) and psychedelic rock (“Living On the Edge of Time,” featuring the legendary Col. Bruce Hampton). There are echoes of Jimi Hendrix-style voodoo on the anti-war tune “Killing Fields” and flashes of the Allman Brothers’ improvisational fire in the extended jam “Smoke and Mirrors.”