Back Porch
2003
Ready For Love
About This Album
Although it kicks off with the first (and only) song John Hammond has ever written, Ready for Love is a worthy and unusually varied follow-up to the surprise success of 2001's Wicked Grin. It would have been easy and possibly expected for Hammond to churn out another album of Tom Waits songs to capitalize on the unanticipated momentum created by Wicked Grin. After all, at age 60, considering he's been chipping away at his craft for the past 40 years, Hammond has certainly earned the right to coast on some better-late-than-never success. And the Waits catalog is bursting with plenty more gems perfect for the singer/guitarist to wrap his throaty, emotional blues voice around. But even though two more Waits songs appear, this is far from either a rehash of Hammond's last disc, or another professionally done but near-carbon-copy set of the sort he's been releasing for the last 20 years. Rather, Hammond pushes his envelope to include classic country, cocktail jazz, and even an obscure Rolling Stones cover. It's hard to say how much influence producer/Los Lobos mainstay David Hidalgo had on selecting these tunes, but since two are rescued from his obscure 1999 Houndog side project, it's likely he was a significant factor.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9)

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