I’ve got to hand it to Randy Chortkoff at Delta Groove—this two disc project is one of the best sets I’ve come across in months. It features not only the back-on-the-scene Hollywood Blue Flames, with young guitar lion Kirk Eli Fletcher replacing the late 1970s guitar phenom Michael “Hollywood Fats” Mann, but guest shots by Fabulous Thunderbirds harp player Kim Wilson (on the Sonny Boy Williamson-sounding grinder “Gone Away”) and West Coast blues guitar trailblazer Junior Watson on three bonus tracks—he rips and roars his way through “Junior’s Boogie Rocket” with that patented half-out-of-control Watson approach, solos sharply on Willie Dixon’s bawdy “Let Me Love You” and pretty much leaves the floor to Al Blake’s big-toned harp on an instrumental take on Roosevelt Sykes’ classic “Honey Dripper.”

That leaves eleven great tracks by the recently re-united Flames that, in addition to Blake who provides the high-voltage vocals as well, includes Lloyd Glenn protégé Fred Kaplan on piano, fresh-from-Canned Heat bassist Larry Taylor (electric as well as acoustic upright on the brilliantly retro instrumentals “Gumbo Grinder” and “Dr. Blake’s Boogie”) and ex-Rod Piazza drummer Richard Innes . Other highlights are the lead-off title tune (that ZZ Top should cover immediately), a double-entendre loaded “Coffee Grindin ’ Man” (with a tasty Fletcher solo), a sax-studded version of Chicago bluesman L.C. McKinley’s signature Bea & Baby hit “Sharpest Man In Town,” the easy loping a la Jimmy Reed “Let’s Rock Awhile” and a fiery “Black Chili Pepper.”

The second CD, starring the intrepid “qualified mixologist ” Hollywood Fats who died at 32 in 1986, is a real treat. His incredible blues via rockabilly guitar playing is featured on all twelve live historical recordings—including two accompanying alto-sax wailing blues legend Eddie “ Cleanhead ” Vinson at the 1979 Monterey Jazz Festival (superb, edge-of-your-seat renditions of two of his smashes “Kidney Stew” and “ Cleanhead Blues”) and a pair with 1950s blues shouter Roy Brown (he was living in Pomona, California at the time) including a seven-minute revival of his risqué “Love For Sale,” recorded in concert at the famed White House tavern in Laguna Beach, California. Brown, at one point, his voice sounding totally unaffected by the years (this was to be his last public performance), pauses to comment that “Fats must have some black in him the way he plays that guitar.” Indeed, as the following rave-up “Boogie Woogie Blues” affirms.

Fats with Flames gems encompass the opening instrumental “Fats Fries One” that nearly achieves lift-off with its unbelievable flights of fretboard creativity, a very rare vocal turn by Fats on the accurately titled “Nasty Boogie Woogie ” (lyrics inspired by the then current jail-bait travails of film director Roman Polanski), a Bill Haley-inspired “Shake, Rattle And Roll,” an instrumental tribute to Freddie King modeled around his over-drive exemplar “Side Tracked” and the closing, personality-rich band roll-call “Motel Time,” also taped at the White House where Fats had a regular Rendezvous With The Blues weekly gig.

Thanks, Randy, for the timeless music.