★★★★★
I first heard of Delbert McClinton when Never Been Rocked Enough was released. I've loved his music ever since. I've known of Glen Clark as a songwriter and composer since the late '90s and, of course, from his work with later incarnations of the Blues Brothers. However, I never knew that they had released two albums together back in the '70s, until I read the press for Blind, Crippled and Crazy. Hearing how well the two of them mesh as soon as the music fires up doesn't come as a surprise...
- www.ink19.com
2013-08-05
★★★★★
In 1972, Texans Delbert McClinton and Glen Clark had already been a part of the Texas music scene for ten years. They recorded Delbert & Glen (1972) for Koch, inaugurating two careers, McClinton's being the more fruitful. That recording produced "B-Movie Boxcar Blues," which found its way onto The Blues Brothers' Briefcase Full Of Blues (Atlantic, 1978), jettisoning McClinton's already considerable popularity...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2013-07-19
★★★★★
Delbert McClinton has been rocking out successfully for more than 50 years. The 72-year-old Grammy Award winner first hit the charts back in 1962 playing harmonica on Bruce Channel's million selling "Hey Baby" that took him on a tour of England, where John Lennon asked McClinton to teach the Beatle how to play the mouth harp...
- www.popmatters.com
2013-07-12
★★★★★
Delbert McClinton must have had the topic of gossip on his mind when he compiled this dandy 14-song collection. There's one track called "People Just Love to talk", which contemplates what it is in our human nature that compels us to spread every juicy tidbit that comes our way all over town. However, he also lets human nature work toward his benefit with "Starting a Rumor" where he puts out word to the grapevine, in hopes of getting something started with a girl he likes...
- roughstock.com
2010-12-07
★★★★★
With a Grammy nomination in the US, Delbert McClinton's Room To Breathe finds the Texan veteran rocking harder than ever. More fêted by fellow musicians than by the record-buying public, on "Lone Star Blues" there's a star-studded chorus of Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, Rodney Crowell and Guy Clark. Musically, they don't add much, and it's not the best track on the album. Yet the endorsement speaks volumes. You can call it blues, country, R&B or Southern rock...
- www.uncut.co.uk
2010-06-19
★★★★★
No text for this review; see http://robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-cg90/grades-90s.php.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-17
★★★★★
McClinton's cult sentimentalizes bar music--having established that a saloon is as fruitful a nexus for music as a studio, they go on to claim that it's better ("more authentic"). But despite his superior sense of rhythm, Delbert's basically a male Texas Linda Ronstadt--a strong-voiced, versatile performer who doesn't come across on record as an especially interesting person. This not only puts him at the mercy of songwriters and arrangements but limits his taste in both...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Texas partisans tout this whoopersnapper as God's own leather-lunged, bicentennial, rockabilly truth, but I can't hear it. He's not ravaged enough; his crazy enthusiasm sounds too professional, too glib; there are none of those spaced-out moments that lend such vulnerability, and credibility, to a Billy Swan. Does this mean I'm complaining that Delbert sings too good? Could be.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Any old boy who can get arrested for "cuttin' up some honky with that bone-handled knife" has earned this perfect new-rockabilly title. But as you might expect, he has more to say in the action-packed tales of adventure ("Honky Tonkin'," "Morgan City Fool") than when he's trying to prove he's a grownup ("Lesson in the Pain of Love," "Troubled Woman").
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
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