Johnny "Guitar" Watson - Hot Just Like TNT (The Best Of His Early Years)

It's definitely not my usual fair, that's to be sure. But this here compilation of Johnny "Guitar" Watson's early rhythm & blues 45s on L.A.'s RPM Records, where he was label mates with Howlin' Wolf, Lightnin' Hopkins & B.B. King, is straight fire, even to my youngblood ears. I know him mainly for these seriously funky electric blues records he made for Dick James back in the 70s, so when I saw this about a month ago on a rack at a Value Village, I wasn't going in blind, exactly.

I come across these Ace Records comps every now and then, and they are ALWAYS worth the two or three bucks I end up spending. Digging in the crates isn't just a cheap excuse to get out of the house and go record shopping. It's a broadening of the knowledge base. It's opening myself up to something I may have read about on another blog, or heard a snippet of a decade ago, and discovering that, yeah, it's just as valid as all those old heads always claimed. It's not some dusty artifact, being overblown by some white haired fart at a record show or on a left of a dial radio station. It has a pulse, a history, and while it may not move you like the first time you heard Otis Redding or Gang of Four or Huggy Bear, BABY IT WILL MOVE YOU.

Anyway. Yeah. Johnny "Guitar" Watson. "Hot Just Like TNT" isn't just a clever title.

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