OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL
Nothing explicit; still, as the liner notes acknowledge, the music is "rife with intimations of lust and violence."

WORLDVIEW
Life is nasty, brutish, and long.

OVERALL QUALITY
Having finally earned the title for which he's striven since signing with Chess Records in the 1960s-"King of the Chicago Blues"-Mr. Guy's return to the tortured, haunted blues of his Louisiana youth is harrowing.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL
None.

WORLDVIEW
Stoicism with a smile-a smile caused in no small part by the irony of a musician's mitigating the financial, romantic, and existential aspects of his misery by getting rich from songs about his financial, romantic, and existential misery.

OVERALL QUALITY
As both Mr. King and Mr. Clapton are often accused these days of sounding too comfortable to play authentic blues, this album's rambunctious, good-natured spontaneity constitutes an especially refreshing change of pace.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL
None.

WORLDVIEW
Getting back to "Baby's Arms" or "forgetting her" altogether is the best cure for "Love Sickness," an emotionally crippling illness of which abandonment ("Already Gone") and its attendant anxieties ("I'm Afraid," "Far Away") are the symptoms.

OVERALL QUALITY
Consistently high in every way (singing, playing, songwriting, song-choosing), providing proof of Mr. Cray's ability to manipulate the various blues-based traditions he has inherited into something spine-tinglingly new.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL
Nothing explicit, although "intimations of lust and violence" do persist.

WORLDVIEW
Stoicism with a smile (Bobby Bland's "Turn on Your Love Light"), a leer (Jonny Lang's "Good Morning Little School Girl"), and a weakness for strong drink (John Lee Hooker's "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer").

OVERALL QUALITY
A useful overview of electric-blues highlights, despite the premature inclusion of whippersnappers (Jonny Lang, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Susan Tedeschi).

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL
"Baggage Claim," "All Night Long" (lechery), "Squeeze Me In" (double entendres), "Nothin' Lasts Forever," "All There Is of Me," "Watchin' the Rain" (casual obscenity).

WORLDVIEW
"It's alright [sic] to let the good time roll / But try to exercise a little self-control / Nothin' lasts forever" (from "Nothin' Lasts Forever").

OVERALL QUALITY
Loose, funny, humble, and rough, its occasional detours into ribaldry the final step in Mr. McClinton's eery transformation into Jerry Lee Lewis.