by Cub KodaOf all the honkers who worked the table tops out on the West Coast, one of the very best was "Big" Joe Houston. Able to jump from big band to small combo blues and R&B with consummate ease, Houston was one of the first to test the waters of the newly emerging style that would become known as rock & roll. Cutting one brilliant single after another for a variety of labels -- and seeing his early work among the first to be anthologized on a myriad of budget label albums -- Houston was the California version of the tenor men who honked and walked the bars in the Big Apple, often outdoing his New York contemporaries with sides of fervent blasting that could not be denied. Fortunately for us, that fervent blasting is alive and well and beating right alongside Houston's big heart on this, his first new album in a good number of years. The most notable fact is that Joe is singing on everything, relegating his tenor work to no more than a c...