Blues Hall of Fame vocalist Jimmy Witherspoon teamed up with guitar hero Robben Ford at Hollywood’s famed Troubadour in March of 1972.

This never-before-released radio broadcast performance features nine tracks, including three Witherspoon originals plus classic songs from Willie Dixon, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Lieber and Stoller.

This is one of the earliest recordings of Ford’s extraordinary career, starting back in 1970 with Charlie Musselwhite and Witherspoon before joining Tom Scott’s L.A. Express. He went on to shred with Steely Dan, Kiss, Yellowjackets, Miles Davis and lead on 25 of his own albums.

Blues vocalist Jimmy Witherspoon and blues guitarist Robben Ford are at the peak of their performing career during this 1972 recording, backed by a young but enthusiastic electric band that Witherspoon had recruited after hearing them open for him in a club the previous year.

With a fresh, young band in tow, one that was designed to capitalize upon the electric blues resurgence that had occurred in those years, Witherspoon delivers a set list that ran the gamut from his early hit single Ain’t Nobody’s Business to a stampeding cover of the Jerry Leiber-Mike Stoller composition Kansas City.

Witherspoon is in a playful mood, frequently speaking to the audience. The set is filled with several other of Witherspoon’s most popular numbers, including Past Forty Blues, My Babe and Spoonful.

1. Don’t Start Me Talkin’
2. Ain’t Nobody’s Business
3. My Babe
4. Spoonful
5. Past Forty Blues
6. Kansas City
7. Nothing’s Changed
8. Around The Clock
9. Goin’ Down Slow

This previously unreleased concert performance opens on the low-slung blues of the catchy Don’t Start Me Talkin’ and then take it down a few notches for the Gospel ballad Ain’t Nobody’s Business, the mid-tempo blues-rock of My Babe and Spoonful, where Robben really rips it up during his solo.

Along next is the vintage, low key yet emotive blues of Past Forty Blues which is in turn by the stridently rhythmic Kansas City, a smooth Nothing’s Changed (another cut where Robben is just playing his heart out), the set rounding out on the melodious Around The Clock, closing all-too-soon on the impassioned balladry of Goin’ Down Slow.

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