Lefty Keith & the True Blues, Volume 2 (Independent)

Lefty may be a drummer, but he’s still a blues bandleader, one who’s set up a residency of sorts on Decatur Street, usually holding it down for French Quarter blues at the Balcony Club. And if the live show is anything like this disc, it explains his steady gig, although these performances work better as a resume than as a portrait of where he’s at right now.

If you’ve heard Volume 1, you know that Keith sticks to the classics—that first batch contained solid if unremarkable versions of warhorses like “The Thrill Is Gone,” “The Things That I Used to Do,” “Everyday I Have the Blues” and “The Blues Is All Right.” Likewise, well-worn blues standards litter this volume, which was recorded live here, in Arkansas, and in Massachusetts between 1997–2011, but there are twists: the True Blues do “Lovey Dovey” like Roland Stone, not the Clovers, and their take on Muddy Waters’ “I’m Ready” is so Blasters-style uptempo it’s almost rockabilly.

Of the three eras, the best stuff happens in Jonesboro, during the band’s brief Burnside Records tenure, with Fred Sanders behind the mic. Their renditions of B. B. King’s “Outside Help,” Jimmy Reed’s “Baby, What You Want Me to Do” and T. Bone Walker’s deathless “Stormy Monday” sound the loosest, the most free-spirited, the most like a jam. Then again, lone original “You’re So Fine,” clichéd as it is, is so expressive in its Cape Cod performance it’s practically jazz.

Lefty can do shuffles, West Coast blues, Chicago electric, and New Orleans soul, but if you want to hear what he’s doing on Decatur—and what standards end up on Volume 3—you’re just gonna have to go down there.