The Amazing Rhythm Aces

"Third Rate Romance," an intriguing mystery on Jesse Winchester's '74 album, Learn to
Love It, is no longer mysterious -- the song's become a well-deserved hit, as played by its
originator, Tennessean Russell Smith and his band, the Amazing Rhythm Aces. While the
Aces' recording of this disarming shuffle hits just the right note, the group's first album is an
uneven hodgepodge replete with flat jokes and unconvincing stabs at various So... More >

If you wanted to be stuffy about it, you could complain that Russell Smith's line about "two lovely lesbian ladies slow-dancin' on a parquet floor" is condescending, but I'll settle. There's enough natural hip here to last most Southern boogie bands a career, with the added attraction that this isn't a Southern boogie band, not hardly, despite the Memphis locus and blues inflections. Some of them worked with Jesse Winchester, but his magnolia rue didn't rub off either. Just something else new under the sun. (Grade: A-)