With Marcia Ball at the keyboards you know that you are going to get a plate full of spicy music; from blues, to New Orleans boogie-woogie piano, to roadhouse/honky-tonk rock, soulful R & B, and swamp rock; it is all soaked in simmering slow burning hot-sauce that ignites the aural taste buds, and all this served up with her big smile.  Having seen this woman perform in all sorts of venues over a number of years she just never fails to pick up the crowd and carry it off with her, and this disc in no way disappoints the listener.  To hear her doing the wonderful runs on piano and at times sounding like she sat at Professor Longhair’s knees studying is to put a smile on your face.  There are others who can conjure up  “Fess” however there is something in the bounce she puts into the music that lets you know, this is Marcia doing this, no one else. 
 
This disc is Ball at her brash and brazen best, playing with impudence and lilt that declares this is Marcia’s disc and you better be ready to celebrate with her.  She wrote or co-wrote all 12 of the songs, her main collaborator on the co-written ones is her Producer Gary Nicholson (Delbert McClinton) and at times a third co-writer either Dan Penn or Tom Hambridge.  Whether she is doing a buckle polishing ballad, “This Used To Be Paradise,” this one is about what is happening destroy our environment, or “Mule Headed Man,” about exactly what the title claims; or it is a raucous number that shows the other side as in, “The Party’s Still Going On,” a rompin’ stompin’ number that is a great description of a Marcia Ball dance show.  She is a Texas/Louisiana border woman who has mastered the piano styles of her region and absorbed the music until it has infected her whole being with that leg bobbing as she plays.  This is a a musical  affair that should not be missed.