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**1/2 Double Trouble

BEEN A LONG TIME

(Tone-Cool)

Rhythm sections don’t usually claim the spotlight, but bassist Chris Layton and drummer Tommy Shannon of Double Trouble enjoy a special status, having been the backing band for the luminous and late Stevie Ray Vaughan. Although they’ve gotten together post-SRV to back guitarist Debbie Davies, they are the leaders of this set, which is sprinkled with big blues names like Johnny Lang, Dr. John, and Susan Tedeschi, along with fellow Austin all-stars Jimmie Vaughan, Eric Johnson, and Lou Ann Barton. The sound more or less stays within the Stevie Ray bag, though naturally the guitar playing is not as white hot. The best cuts avoid making the guitar the star — that would include two sung by Austin’s soulful Malford Milligan and “In the Garden,” one of Tedeschi’s numbers. Layton and Shannon dip into a Band of Gypsies number with “She’s All Right,” where Doyle Bramhall II proves he has the guitar vocabulary, but not the poetry, of Vaughan. Tedeschi’s take on “Rock and Roll” is so similar to the Zeppelin origi½al that it’s a waste of time, and like Lang’s erce “Groundhog Day” (which could be an AC/DC outtake), it shows just how far into rock overdrive the blues is willing to travel these days.

— Bill Kisliuk