Customer Reviews

Austin Rhythm & Blues Christmas

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This is a fun Christmas collection that captures the early Austin, TX blues sound, including the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Lou Ann Barton. The mysterious Paul Ray is indeed a lounge singer; he used to front Paul Ray and the Cobras with Denny Freeman and Stevie Ray vaughn on guitars. Ray was also a great DJ on KUT with "Twine Time," playing all kinds of lost R&B numbers.

We have had this record spinning every year at Christmas time for the last twenty-plus years, and the music is always enjoyed. A nice balance of rock and roll, blues, slow ballads and outstanding instrumentalists. Angela Strehli is my favorite vocalist on the record... just love her emotion.

I had this album given to me by Jimmie Vaughn when the Fabulous Thunderbirds played at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz, California, I want to say on December 4, 1985, but my memory doesn't have exact recall. It was before the TBird's set, we were up stairs, and Jimmie was handing out albums. Rod Powell the infamous car detailer was there, amongst others. I somehow got the last record Jimmie had with him at the time. He was a friendly fellow.

I like this record a lot! Way back when I recorded the LP to cassette tape and gave a few copies away. Never could find the record available anywhere. I recently in the last few years put the LP onto CD using a Roxio product, which helped reduce the scratches and such from the sound. I found the MP3's available while looking for the song data as I am importing the CD into iTunes. The only problem with my CD is a faint 60hZ hum in one channel, but that's another story (fixed the cause with a higer-end audio pre-amp).

Enough said! If you dig rythym and blues with soul, and also cherish the Christmas reason and season, then I highly recommend these tunes... Oh, the original LP had different cover art: a picture of Santa with a bag of guitars slung over his shoulder....