Being a fairly established music writer/critic, I can pretty much get a review copy of most any CD. However, after hearing this play in a music store, I couldn’t wait to put my money on the counter down for this one. People Gonna Talk comes from out of left field (England actually), but it stands with classics like Bobby Bland’s Two Steps From the Blues, Muddy Water’s Best of, Clarence Carter’s Testifin’, and Robert Cray’s Bad Influence. James Hunter is a 30-ish bloke from the northern counties who plays guitar with a brittle style that tells me he listened to a lot of Mickey Baker riffs when he was growing up. His voice is emotive like James Brown yet silkly like Sam Cooke, and his band plays with a relaxed tightness, that is pushed by a stellar tenor/baritone sax tag team. (I’d put these guys up against the Memphis Horns in a second.) His completely original compositions—no straight 12-bar blues here—lyrically deal with the usual R&B subjects—love, doubt, revenge, adversity, etc. But the alterations to the welcome mat on “Don’t Come Back” is a new one. Many of these songs would have topped the charts in the glory days of Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson and Tyrone Davis. That’s how good James Hunter’s People Gonna Talk is.