Arthur Brown with Jimmy Carl Black - Brown, Black & Blue (Reissue, Remastered) (1988/2009)

Teaming up with ex-Mothers of Invention drummer Jimmy Carl Black (who gets second billing) and a team of Austin bar band veterans, Arthur Brown turns out a set of R&B standards such as "Fever" and "Smokestack Lightnin'." For the most part, Brown is content to play the role of straightforward blues shouter, only letting his wilder persona out on an extended rap during "Got My Mojo Working," an appropriately extreme version of "Hound Dog," on which he takes even more lyrical liberties than Elvis Presley did, and "The Lord Is My Friend," ain which the self-proclaimed "god of hell fire" gets religion and learns to preach. None of these versions will ever make you forget the classic ones by progenitors like Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf, although they are competently done. This is the kind of set that is best heard in a bar with a cold one in hand, but that didn't ever need to be made into an album.