Nothing Personal
Like many other senior bluesmen, Delbert McClinton is getting back to basics:Nothing Personal, his first album for New West, is the raw, stripped-down sort of material that sounds best when you know it comes from experience. It is this sense of things seen and done that pervades every track, and which prevents songs like "When Rita Leaves" and "Don't Leave Home Without It" from lapsing into sentimentality. The more emotional, personal numbers--the album's title notwithstanding, this is a highly personal album--are balanced with high-energy material, though even these songs, such as "Livin' It Down," have a serious thing or two to say. McClinton also neatly avoids several clichés. Take, for instance, "Nothing Lasts Forever," which has, as a theme, the necessity of living life to the fullest without burning yourself out. One might expect such a song to be an uptempo rocker. Instead, it moves along at an easy, swinging pace, the musical personification of following a path of moderation.Nothing Personalis full of little touches and techniques like this, moving out of the realm of merely good, and into the ranks of art.--Genevieve Williams