Lonnie Brooks and The Brooks family band will be coming to On the Waterfront this year, and that seemed as good a reason as any to have a listen to one of his CD's. His most recent dates a ways back; the man has been doing live performances rather than hitting the studio, but it is a good collection. The disc represents a compilation of some of his better work on Chicago based Alligator records.

The songs on the CD were recorded between 1979 and 1996, thereby covering a wide range of Brooks' career and an equally wide variety of his sounds. Within you will find smoking hard edged modern electric blues, soulful old school jazzy tunes, down and dirty slow blues and that's just a few of the sounds here. All throughout the varying styles Brooks shows that he has the spirit and the soul of the blues. He can make the sounds scream or cry. He can get you on your feet or grooving in your seat. He will without doubt go down in the annals of blues music as one of the greats.

His son Ronnie Baker Brooks is featured on a number of the songs, and he along with brother Wayne Baker Brooks are part of the Brooks family band that will be showcased at On The Waterfront. This CD would be a great collection for those who are going to make the show to get acquainted with the music of this blues powerhouse. A 40 plus year career of playing the blues should tell you to go see him, but this album will reinforce that idea. While not every song here is a total winner, most of them are. Start with this disc and you'll probably be looking to add more Lonnie to your CD collection.