03 November 2011

Lou Ann Barton Brings Back a Classic: "Hip Shake" (1982)


"With a Texas drawl as thick as the August humidity,
Lou Ann Barton stepped into the role of chanteuse and never looked back. ...."
-- Margaret Moser, The Austin Chronicle (2011)

A founding member of SRV's band Double Trouble, Lou Ann Barton's Hip Shake on her solo debut is a Texas roadhouse blues masterwork.

Lou Ann's Hip Shake is a cover of seminal Slim Harpo song I discovered on The Oxford American Southern Sampler (1999). (I spent a year listening to the tune thinking Barton was black. Nope. This is blue-eyed soul here, through and through.) The song was re-popularized by the Stones with its release in 1972 on Exile on Main St.

With
Hip Shake, Lou Ann brings new life to this deep album cut from Exile, and it's still alive and shakin' 20 years after Lou Ann cut her version and 40 years after the Stones version.

I've been meaning to get Lou Ann's album Old Enough (1982; album cover shown above) ever since I discovered it. I may just break down and get that album soon. I can eat noodles and Halloween candy for a few days.

Now, just stand still, "don't move your hands" and "Just Shake Your Hips!"


Hip Shake, Lou Ann Barton (1982)

2 comments:

whiteray said...

The Texas Gal and I stopped off at one of the local thrift store Sunday, she to look for fabric fragments and I to check out the CDs. And I found a very clean CD of Lou Ann's "Old Enough." I was stunned.

Paco Malo said...

Way cool!