1. “Rock and Stick”
(J Walroth)
"This is one several songs by my friend Jack Walroth on this album. It's an unusual track. It's kind of a loose copy of one of the demos we did of Jack's songs. They're all in a bluesy vein, but this one has a little reggae. Each of Jack's songs is special and different, but that one really fascinates me. I did the demo with Jack singing the lead vocal, and then I later tried it myself, in my own key. I never paid that close attention to the lyrics, but when we considered recording it for this album, I went to Jack and asked him what it was about, and he said 'Well, I don't know, it was a long time ago and you know how things are. It made sense at the time.' That's all he said. I listened to it with that in mind, trying to figure out what it was about, and I came to an interpretation that made a lot of sense to me, and I came to really embrace the lyrics that Jack had written. It's a special song, I like the lyrics, and I like the different-ness of the song."
2. “I’ve Just Got to Forget You”
(Don Deadric Robey)
"Bobby Blue Bland was a very, very big influence. He was a real fixture in a lot of our lives. I can hear his influence in myself and a lot of my cohorts, certainly anybody I've worked with or known from Texas. If it wasn't his voice and his style, it was his musicians. There were a couple of guitar players who worked on a lot of Bobby's material during that time that influenced a lot of people, and we were drawn to that sound. It's a very Texas style, although Bobby was from Memphis, he did a lot of his best work in Houston. There was a smooth, sophisticated, progressive thing about those productions. I got to know Bobby in his later years; he'd visit me in the studio when I was making my Memphis album."
3. “I’ve Just Got to Know”
(Jimmy McCracklin)
"That one just appeared. I'd been sitting in with Los Lobos in the last few years, and they'd call out tunes, some of which I knew and some of which I didn't. They were doing some anniversary shows at the Fillmore, and they invited me to come sit in with them one night. I said 'What do you want to do?' and David Hidalgo suggested that song. I didn't know it, and I hadn't listened to Magic Sam that much. I loved the song when I heard it. I learned how to do it with them. It was one of those songs that just stuck, and one that I somehow missed over the years."
4. “Radiator 110”
(J Walroth)
"Another Jack Walroth song that stuck and that seemed to work with this collection of songs. It's got more of a rock thing about it, and a different kind of energy to it. We needed a little of that to round out this collection. It was also a good chance for Doyle to grab a hold of something."
5. “Little Miss Night and Day”
(Lyrics: Boz Scaggs / Music: Boz Scaggs & J Walroth)
"That was something I had in my demo pile, and it was nothing more than a guitar groove when I presented it to the band. I had a vocal approach that was sort of scat-sing. We recorded it live and then we went back and wrote the words to it. It's a real Texas shuffle, and knowing that I had both Doyle and Charlie that day, it fell into a groove. It's one of the happiest, most joyous things I've ever recorded. For me, to listen back to it, the band gave me everything that I've ever wanted out of a Texas shuffle. That song will never grow old to me, because I just love what they did."
6. “On The Beach”
(Neil Young)
"My son and some friends of his do these music productions, where they invite a number of different players and they do thematic concerts, and they had asked me to do a couple of their shows. They were doing Neil Young, and it had been my son's and his partners' suggestion that I do 'On the Beach'. In the course of preparing for the show, I tried on some other Neil Young songs, but they really thought that the minor blues idiom of 'On the Beach' would work for me, and they were right. The song just captivated me, and while it's not a traditional blues form, it's a blues song in spirit, and I thought it belonged on the album."
7. “Down in Virginia”
(Jimmy Reed-Manny Reed)
"Bobby Blue Bland and Jimmy Reed are my go-to guys. I love a lot of the blues, but those two touched me most deeply. Jimmy Reed is very deeply ingrained in my music. His music is what many of us learned to play first, because it's the simplest guitar form to get a hold of, but it's not easy to accomplish. It's easy to sound like you're playing like Jimmy Reed, in his basic style, your A and E, which are the easiest rhythm chords to play. But I would venture to say that here are maybe five people in the world who can even touch his harmonica style—I'm not exaggerating. His singing is the most deep and touching and personal vocal performances of anybody in any genre. I'm just so into his style. And his songs are about as basic as you can get, but then again, it's so much fun to try and play that stuff. Jimmy Reed goes deep with me."
8. “Those Lies”
(J Walroth)
"Another one of Jack Walroth's songs, it's probably the first one of his that I chose. I like the words and I liked the groove."
9.“The Feeling is Gone”
(Don Deadric Robey)
"Deadric Malone is a pseudonym for Don Robey, the guy who ran the Duke and Peacock labels in the '50s and '60s, and who put his name on a lot of songs that other people wrote. This is a great song, whoever wrote it. It was one of Bobby "Blue" Bland's songs, one of three or four really iconic things he did. Bobby put such a strong imprint on the song that I wasn't sure where to take it at first, other than to read it pretty verbatim, which seemed to work."