Consumer Guide Album

Guy Davis: Be Ready When I Call You [M.C., 2021]
I've long been mildly impressed by Ossie and Ruby's blues-soaked son, who turns 71 in May. But as I listened harder to his 21st album I found there wasn't much mild about it. Yes there are fun songs here: the near-novelty "Badonkadonk Train," the hopeful "I Got a Job in the City," in its mean way the Trump-thumping bonus cut "It Was You." But it's the specificity and bite of the overt protest songs that had me listening harder, with three earning my full attention: the all too leaden "Flint River Blues," Davis's undiminished outrage at the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, and "Palestine, Oh Palestine," one of the rare responses to that horror to achieve something resembling felt balance without beginning to pretend that all evils are equal. A-