Drawing from a myriad of performing experiences that include seven years with the late great Muddy Waters, Mississippi-born Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson draws from influences such as Ray Charles, Sam Cooke and Freddy King, adds his own distinctive thing and the result is a potent combination of blues-drenched soulful music found on Talkin' About Soul.

Few performers comfortably straddle both the soul and blues musical fences like Johnson, even though many of the soul folks sing or play with bluesy inflections and the blues artists have plenty of soul. Johnson's 2001 Telarc release Talkin' About Soul demonstrates his skill at bringing together down-home blues and Chicago-style R&B.

He delivers imaginative covers of such classic tunes as Charles' "I've Got A Woman" (a song few artists have the nerve to even consider recording), Cooke's "Somebody Have Mercy" and even The Isley Brothers' perennial "It's Your Thing" (fused with bluesman Bobby Rush's "I'll Pay You Back") along with Freddy King's "Lonesome Whistle Blues" and Willie Mabon's "Poison Ivy."

If you're more of a traditional blues lover, you will dig Luther's own "Ramblin' Blues" and "Suffer So Hard With The Blues" (with some particularly nifty Stax-flavored horn lines) and you'll appreciate his blending of Bobby "Blue" Bland's "You've Got Bad Intentions" with B.B. King's "Crying Won't Help You." It doesn't hurt that Luther has some badass players like former Muddy Waters alumni guitarist Brian Bisesi, harpist Jerry Portnoy, keyboardist David Maxwell, drummer Kenny "Beedy Eyes" Smith and bassist Randy Lippincott supporting him on this ninth of some ten or so albums.

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