Customer Reviews

Hot Number

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
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If you haven't heard this album you are in for a surprise. The Fab. Thunderbirds were at their best, music-wise and line-up-wise when they recorded this one. Listen to "Wasted Tears" on an evening when you are a little melancholy, and it will tear your heart out. Or how about "How do you spell love?" No truer words were ever recorded, listen carefully to them. Top them off with "Sofa Circuit". These guys were in their element on this album, it is too bad that they were to only record a few more and then personell changes weakened their impact. All told, this is an essential album for Kim Wilson and Jimmie Vaughn fans. The Duke Robilard era is okay, but this was the Thunderbirds at their best.

Hot Number is the T-Birds follow up to Tuff Enuff. Jimmie Vaughan has said that he didn't like playing on this album because the band used a horn section. Jimmie's rhythm playing had always been the anchor of the band, and though he may have had to sublimate his ego here, allowing the horns to take the spotlight on some songs (he barely plays at all on Streets of Gold), he is still very much in his element. It seems his frustration has carried over into his playing, with great results. His guitar tone is clean, hot and sounds downright angry in most places. This creates a great contrast to the mellowing uptown horns, organ and piano parts on many songs. Listen to How Do you Spell Love, a re-recording of the same song from T-Bird Rhythm. His rhythm part is simple, but the combination of heavy amp tremolo and his biting lead tone make the song snarl with conviction and maybe more than a little frustration. It sounds as if he's trying to take over the band with his sound. It's the same on Hot number, one of my favorite T-Bird songs, where the lead fits the lyrics to a T. There are some obvious carryovers from Tuff Enuff. It Comes to Me Naturally is an example about a guy who can't control himself in any bar full of women, with a typical stripped down and supercharged Jimmy Reed style rhythm part from Vaughan. Jimmie's use of a long scale guitar, a habit I think he picked up from Dave Edmunds (what's Jimmie doing picking up habits from a Brit anyway??), is used sparely but effectively, as in Don't Bother Tryin' to Steal Her Love. Stand Back is an excellent example of the tension between guitar and horns that pervades this record, and it's perfect as the first song. Love in Common is a great song about a relationship between a down home Southern guy and his uptown northerner girlfriend. Wasted Tears is a melancholy song about a broken up relationship with soulfull horn and organ parts and a 1950's sounding tearjerker guitar part. It's great that Jimmy and the guys didn't waste any tears when they made this album. Kim wilson plays harp and sings with perfection. All in all this record has a more uptown, mainstream rhythm and blues feel than other T-Bird albums, but that doesn't take away from the T-Bird sound, it adds to it, and it's good, it's good.

The thinking behind the songlist for "Hot Number" is exasperating, to say the least. This is the album that followed the highly successful "Tuff Enough" record, responsible for putting the blues on the Billboard top 10 for the first time ever! Dave Edmunds produced again and did a fine job. Unfortunately, when track four, five and six get through, whatever energy created by the great start of the record is completely demolished and the listener is left wondering what happened. If you take those tracks out of the mix you have a fairly incredible record, complete with some of Kim Wilson's best vocals, Jimmie Vaughan's tastiest guitar work and even a Duke Robillard composition that completely rocks. Replace those three tracks with songs that are consistent with the rest of the album and this record is easily as good as "Tuff Enough" and maybe better. I guess you can call it a "what if" scenario of high proportions, truly a head scratcher.