Sonny Landreth's new release, "The Road We're On," marks a new peak for slide-guitar playing. Though blues guitarists often slip a bottleneck, roll a cut-metal tube or scrape a knife blade along the strings, only a few players become full-time slide masters.
For sophisticated expertise and fluency alone, aspiring slide guitarists have Landreth high on their lists of players to study. Other Louisiana compatriots -- Dr. John, John Hiatt and zydeco groups Beausoleil and Clifton Chavier -- invited him on board not just to enhance but to better define their sound. Landreth is more than a technical player, though: He uses his technique for amazing displays of expressiveness. His slide guitar can laugh like a drunk, thunder like a train and moan like a lover.
On the upbeat numbers, his guitar lines soar over the chugging rhythms of the spare bass-and-drum accompaniment. He adds percussion, washboard and keyboards on a few tracks, but it's obvious he wants nothing to get in the way of his playing. On the straight-up "Gemini Blues," his guitar answers each line like a chorus of backup singers and renders them with fuller irony: "You say, 'Hi baby bye/stop baby go'/You say, 'Stay baby leave'/You say, 'Yeah baby no'/The two in you/give me the Gemini blues." The bouncing, highway beat of "The Road We're On" throws on plenty of coal for a steaming ride on line after line of punchy chords and screaming high notes. The pure zydeco of "Gone Pecan" is joyous. Whatever the metaphor might be in "So don't come knockin'/We ain't home/Me and mine/are gone pecan," it definitely makes you want to crack a nut or two.