This list at times comes up with some kind of strange choices every now and then. Well, maybe more than “now and then,” but this is perhaps one of those times. Not that this is a bad record, far from it. It’s your fairly straight-forward blues rock record, and for what it’s worth, it’s a damn competent one. I’m Easy brings a swagger and a style that becomes infectious the more you listen to it, and the simple rocking style mixed with the backup singers reminds me a lot of middle-period Bob Dylan. It especially reminds me of When You Gonna Wake Up off his Slow Train Coming record. Finding Her also ends up as a very effective crooner, with an expertly played guitar and a lone piano setting a great tone, and Scaggs’ voice is great. And if the record has a centerpiece, it’s the mammoth 12-minute funeral march of Loan Me a Dime with a piano that sounds like Ballad of a Thin Man if it had been born and bred in the deep south. And the soulful guitar work on this track especially tugs at the heartstrings. But forgive me if you will for a moment to call the rest of the record a tad...generic? No doubt there’s some great work here, and part of it might be a result of influence retroactively cannibalizing its source material, but a lot of it feels like retreaded ground that’s been done better elsewhere. Especially when the album takes some turns into country like on the song Waiting for a Train, which honestly sounds a lot like a Western take on It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (okay yeah I’m making a lot of Dylan comparisons, it was the 60’s okay?). Maybe it’s my jaded old heart, and I can definitely appreciate why someone would get a kick out of this record. And I definitely appreciate the record for turning me on to a former member of the Steve Miller Band (one of my dad’s favorite acts). Like I said, it’s certainly not bad. I was just perhaps expecting a bit more.
Rating: 3/5
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