Mercury
1979
Keeper of the Flame
About This Album
Keeper of the Flame was the follow-up to Second Wind and was to prove once again to be the last record Delbert McClinton would record for a label that was going out of business; in this case it would be Capricorn. The sound of the album is quite different in that it was cut in Los Angeles rather than in Macon. Also, there are no Muscle Shoals players on the date. McClinton's road band was augmented by bassist Willie Weeks, pianist John Jarvis, and Hammond B-3 king Old Joe Walk; Bob Harwell was the entire horn section, playing all four saxophones with John Hug; and Billy Sanders played guitars (they were with Johnny Sandlin on Second Wind as well). Sandlin was still in the producer's chair and seemed to understand intrinsically all of the seeming contradictions in McClinton's sound -- he exploited them to the maximum. The album is a laid-back mix of killer soul, white-hot R&B, and country funk; there's little rock & roll on this set, perhaps because Jarvis' style was already so rooted in the barroom barrelhouse style of pianists there was no room for another pursuit. In terms of material there was no shortage of great songs. Randall Bramblett's "Plain Old Makin' Love" is restless country-soul; with its Memphis-styled horn lines grafted onto the refrain, one could hear Otis Redding singing the sh*t out of this tune.
Track List

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