Lonnie Brooks, Long John Hunter, Phillip Walker - Lone Star Shootout [1999]

Lonnie Brooks made his name in Chicago, Long John Hunter in West Texas and Phillip Walker in Los Angeles, but all three of these guitar-slinging bluesmen learned their craft in the "Golden Triangle." In that area bounded by Lake Charles, Beaumont and Port Arthur -- where the swamps of South Louisiana meet the piney woods of East Texas -- oil and shrimp workers of the 1950s crowded the honky-tonks. They demanded a boiling gumbo pot of blues, boogie and zydeco according to the recipes drawn up by Guitar Slim, Clifton Chenier, Gatemouth Brown and T-Bone Walker.

So when Phillip Walker, Hunter and Brooks teamed up for an all-star album, "Lone-Star Shootout," they naturally gravitated to their common experiences on the Gulf Coast. Walker, who like Brooks got his start in Chenier's band, sings songs associated with Gatemouth Brown and T-Bone Walker, while Hunter sings a take-off on Guitar Slim's standard, "The Things I Used To Do."

On songs both old and new, the three leaders combine that syncopated swamp beat and those blistering Texas guitar solos as if they were back in the raucous roadhouses of their youth. With guest appearances by Marcia Ball and Ervin Charles, "Lone-Star Shootout" shines the light on a regional sub-genre whose pleasures have too often been overlooked.