All Night Long
Smith chooses odd vehicles for the delivery of his wry observations on racial matters. "Mother You Say You Don't Like the Black Colors" is done in norteno style, and "Is He White or Is He Black?" has an oompah country and western beat.... Fortunately, both songs are mercifully short. More subtle, but perhaps more telling, is the fact that the band sounds more at ease on these songs than it does anywhere else. Surely this is the most tepid edition of Smith's Night Riders yet....  [The label] Delmark has compounded Smith's problems by toning down his intensity, cleaning up his guitar sound, and mixing it so low in the ensemble that Pat Hall's rinky-tink piano ends up on top far too often.... Still, despite its faults, thisisa Byther Smith album--and even a near-miss by Byther Smith beats the vast majority of the competition in today's CD bins. --Living Blues[Byther] Smith, a Mississippi native and weathered veteran of 69 amateur boxing matches, withAll Night Longdelivers a series of relentless gut punches to the genre [electric blues].... For the real stuff, the fighter's the man, issuing rough-hewn declarations of lust over unvarnished 12-bar riffs and six-string conversations as sharp as razors.... Smith seems all but consumed by middle-age identity loss, pondering the perils of fading glory on "Live on This Man's Name".... Smith's nothing if not among the best and last of a rare breed. --Option