Consumer Guide Album

T-Bone Burnett: Trap Door [Warner Bros. EP, 1982]
Gosh, I guess he wasn't really rockabilly after all. "Hold On Tight" is El Lay at its best, and it's hard to imagine Jerry Lee himself covering "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" with more purpose or panache. Not that this is altogether unproblematic--as catchy and incisive as the originals are, as casually as they're delivered, not one jumps off the record with the unassuming confidence of the cover's pure pop. This is an artist who can't shake his own self-consciousness. That's why he came on rockabilly. A-