Louisiana Red - Dead Stray Dog (1976)

Louisiana Red's career was stalled by the '70s, partly because he still hadn't really found his own blues voice, sounding like Muddy Waters more than anything, but things turned around when he signed with Blue Labor Records. Blue Labor was run by a pair of musicians, jazz arranger Kent Cooper and composer Heiner Stadler, and they saw in Red not another Muddy Waters, but something closer to Lightnin' Hopkins or John Lee Hooker, and they helped Red find his own voice through four albums for the label in the '70s, including this one recorded in 1975, which features Louisiana Red solo and acoustic, and doing original material (a lot of it co-penned by Cooper). The no-frills recording approach makes this one of Red's best and most original albums, and combined with the previous album on Blue Labor, Sweet Blood Call, it formed a sturdy one-two template for Red's re-launched recording career. © Steve Leggett /TiVo