Few places are as steeped in music legend as Texas and Los Angeles, and few genres facilitate these legends so well as The Blues and Rock and Roll. While both Delbert McClinton and Glen Clark have expanded far beyond their early years, they spent much of the early 1970’s bouncing between Texas and Los Angeles becoming legends in both genres. Glenn Clark moved on to pursue opportunities in television. Delbert McClinton settled into a life as one of the fore-fathers of roots music before anyone in Texas knew the term. Eventually, he met up with Gary Nicholson and the two quickly became songwriting collaborators. Nicholson took the help as co-producer as the two old friends sat down to record their first new album since 1973. Blind, Crippled and Crazy is an exuberant album about living through the blues and coming out on the other side.
Blind, Crippled and Crazy has the easy energy and confidence of two men who have songs older than most of their professional peers. “I ain’t old, but I been around a long time,” they quip on the opening track “Been Around a Long Time.” “More and More, Less and Less” finds wisdom in simplifying one’s life. The message is underscored by a dark and moody, densely layered melody. The album is centered on McClinton’s legendary sense of humor, but it never settles for being jokey. “Oughta No” has one of the best plays on words in recent memory, but also an almost embarrassingly relatable message about not quite learning well enough to not repeat past mistakes. “Tell My Mama” also finds the humor in a rocky past, full of mistakes. “Peace in the Valley” takes the old joke of finally getting some peace and quiet when a lover leaves and flips in on its head when the abandoned ex can no longer find a friend to drink with. But the humor always come in a long second to life and the lesson it has to impart one way or another. On “Somebody to Love You” they lay out their basic rules of life, “You need a job so you can make some money, you need a nice warm place to stay, a sense of humor ‘cause life is funny.” It is a songs that carries the overall sense of the album, that the lessons life imparts are worth whatever they cost. “Whatever I got is what I need” they affirm on “Good as I Feel today.”
Delbert McClinton and Glen Clark have earned their war stories. Listening to Blind, Crippled and Crazy one gets the sense that there is a tattered book of stories running around somewhere, collections of pictures that no one outside the group will be able to see. It is an album filled with the kind of life stories people often pay good money to see on the silver screen. The lessons come fast, usually have a good laugh, and always have a good story. Blind, Crippled and Crazy is the most fun one can have listening to a blues album this year.
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