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*** Debbie Davies

LOVE THE GAME

(Shanachie)

Emotional highs are the key to good blues, and local six-stringer/singer Debbie Davies hits them here — especially when she’s trading the kind of sharp-edged licks perfected by her mentor Albert Collins with producer/guitarist Duke Robillard on the instrumental duel “Fired Up” and on the simmering “Down in the Trenches,” which offers her most sad-eyed vocals and a solo built from little bends and chromatic touches that illuminate the heartache. This is her best album, with good songwriting, a breadth of blues and roots command, relaxed and natural singing, and hot-rod guitars. Guest Jay Geils punches up the rocker “Worst Kinda Man” with some slide and Bruce Katz paints shades of B-3 across the album. Robillard’s solo on “Grow Up, Grow Old” splits the difference between Texas blues and Bakers eld country. But it’s Davies who, at last, has hit her mark as an artist.

— Ted Drozdowski