Classic Scotty

Nobody says it out loud, but everyone knows that rock & roll guitar stopped being any fun at least 20 years ago. The players who are really enjoying themselves are the country guys, the ones who can draw on blues, jazz, R&B, and rock & roll influences without worrying about what their audiences will think and who know how to blend relatively simple structural concepts with jaw-dropping technical facility to create something that fellow guitarists and lay listeners can equally enjoy. Scotty Anderson is one in a long line of hotshot Telecaster specialists who goes back through Redd Volkaert and Robert Shafer to the grandaddy of them all, the late great Danny Gatton. He's equally at home spinning out 80-mile-an-hour Travis picking ("Going Down This Road Feeling Bad") or greasy, sizzling slide guitar (a great version of ZZ Top's one-chord Texas classic "LaGrange") or fingerstyle jazz with simultaneous basslines, chords, and melodic variation (a spectacular arrangement of Lennon and McCartney's "All My Loving"). He maybe gets just a bit schmalzy on his instrumental arrangement of "Cold Cold Heart," and the world didn't really need another version of "Boogie on Reggae Woman," chops or no chops. But overall this album is a solid joy from beginning to end.