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No, nothing on Potato Hole is as unassailable as vintage MGs cuts like 'Green Onions' and 'Time Is Tight.' But the set's authoritative blend of grit and melody is mostly pretty ace.
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the guests' reverence for Booker T. is clear--the Truckers, as they did when they recently backed Bettye LaVette, know when to muscle up (on 'Pound It Out') and how to hang back (on moving, B3-powered track 'She Breaks,' a sweet, shimmering number filled with references to Booker T.'s awesome past).
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There are no chart-baiting superstar guest vocalists or gimmicks, just gut-punching, funky, loose-limbed, rock 'n' soul jams recorded in down-and-dirty sessions without an inch of fat.
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Potato Hole proves as extraordinary, delirious and laugh-out-loud weird as anyone might dare hope.
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Booker T. Jones, the organist who led the M.G.’s on their own and as the Stax-Volt studio band on countless Memphis soul classics, sounds more pithy and forceful than ever on Potato Hole, an album of rock and soul instrumentals.
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Potato Hole isn't a slab of greasy Stax soul, either. It is what it is, a new Booker T. Jones album, and hopefully it won't take another 20 years to get to the next one.
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A noodling version of the Truckers' own 'Space City' wanders a little too aimlessly to close, but Potato Hole overall is a subtle album with enough fire to prove that Jones can still bring the heat.
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Booker T. is more a frontman than a bandleader here, which makes Potato Hole sound less like a solo album and more like a band project.
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OutKast's 'Hey Ya' cooks Shakey's bio-diesel, while his brief solo on 'Native New Yorker' buffs a thoroughbred coat, and Tom Waits' 'Get Behind the Mule' pushes the heated end of the beast.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 9 out of 10
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Mixed: 0 out of 10
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Negative: 1 out of 10
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JoeOutlawJun 1, 2009Fabulous meld of Booker T. for the ages!