Denny Freeman A Tone for My Sins Dallas Blues Society 8904

If you like to piss off Austinites (and who doesn’t?), remind them that their city's vaunted blues scene was virtually founded by Dallasites. From Big D came (among others) the brothers Vaughan and Denny Freeman, the latter one of the most artful guitarists in Texas history. Long a fixture of the Antone’s house band, where he accompanied blues legends galore, he’s done some good recordings of his own, but this is, far and away, his best.

Freeman penned all 12 instrumentals. "Swing Set" and "Rhythm Method" are brisk, jazz-flavored blues tunes with guitar work rife with both tact and passion. Unlike players who squeeze away on high strings to the exclusion of all else, Freeman plays the whole guitar, offering burbly low-string work, classy comping and lead fillips that couldn’t be jazzier if Herb Ellis did them. "Cat Fight" is a blues that’s slow, low, and well named, since the bottleneck work sounds just like a tomcat looking for a dog to mosh. "Stealin’ Berries" is Freeman’s tribute to ’50s rock, with chunky chords and leads so greasy they leave marks.

The other tunes are generally catchy, covering a wide range of melodic traits while showcasing Freeman’s concise, feisty guitar statements. That’s Freeman’s old bud, Joe Sublett, sax-blasting on "Aftershock," a churner that sees Freeman set aside his guitar for a few choruses to play some leads on one of those six-string basses Texans are so fascinated with. "It’s a Love Thing" is lilting, funk-lite a la early Crusaders, way different than the headlong "Don’t Stop Now" (on which Freeman sounds like he’s playing slide with a vacuum cleaner).

But both have a very visual, almost palpably cinematic air. It’s tempting to say that since Freeman now lives in L.A. he might be writing with an eye toward movies, but it’s probably more accurate to say that in Tarantino Nation, movies have started sounding like Freeman.