Nutbush City Limits [Laserlight] (CD - 1973)

Nutbush City Limits is filled with hard day-glo funk, overloaded with fuzz guitars, wah wahs, clavinets and horn sections, but at its core it is still gritty deep soul, thanks to a slow-burning cover of Dobie Gray's country-soul classic "Drift Away," the gospel-fied "That's My Purpose," a churning, funky reworking of "You Are My Sunshine" and, of course, the hard-driving title track, which mythologizes Tina's country upbringing. Of course, "rootsy" in this context is a relative term, since Nutbush City Limits still feels like '70s funk even with all the country flourishes; songs as greasy as the frenzied "Make Me Over" and down-and-dirty as "Get It Out of Your Mind," Ike's two originals here, guarantee that, as does an insane hard-rocking reclaiming of "River Deep, Mountain High" that plays like a spit in Phil Spector's eye. As such, Nutbush City Limits feels like a celebration of Ike & Tina's versatility, but even so it never wanders too far, since Ike knew that the key to the appeal of the Ike & Tina Revue was their hard, dirty funk. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine minimize