Ain't Worried No More
The sturdiness of the blues tradition will support any band with decent chops and good instincts and make it sound good, but only the rarest bands overcome the weight of that same tradition to make music original enough for greatness. The Dallas quartet, Mike Morgan & the Crawl, is the perfect example of a bar band that serves the blues legacy honorably without ever adding much to it.Ain't Worried No Moreincludes nine songs by guitarist Morgan among its 13 tracks, but these represent a reshuffling of old materials rather than anything personal enough to be forever associated with its composer. Morgan, who wears a pirate patch over his right eye, is not a singer; he leaves that to his longtime partner and harmonica soloist Lee McBee, whose gruff and soulful baritone never distracts from the band's groove. Morgan plays his Telecaster in the style of his idol Jimmie Vaughan, emphasizing funky rhythm chords and disciplined bursts of single-note playing. Typical of the album is title tune, which chugs along agreeably aboard Morgan's polite riffs and McBee's lazy drawl but which never seems to shift into high gear.--Geoffrey Himes