Just Do Me Right

This posthumous complement to Payton's only studio disc is something of a revelation. Not only does it confirm that he was a great blues and soul singer (just check out "Back to the Bridge," with its "In the Midnight Hour" riff, or the lazy groove of "I Got a Friend," with its percolating wah-wah guitar line), but it shows the man could play funk too — "1000 Years" roars out of the speakers straight to the dancefloor, powered by some unexpected horns, and "Need My Help" has all the power of a latter-day Hendrix song. All of that isn't to say he didn't play a lot of gutbucket acoustic blues, too; "Livin' in So Much Pain" is about as down-home as you can get. In many ways, there seemed to be no end to his passion for different styles of music. "Nobody But You" could almost have come out of the Stax studios circa 1965, while "Watch Yourself" is a barnburning R&B/early rock & roll track that kicks like a mule. While Payton's other album showed him to be a man of talent, this offers that talent to its full extent, drawn together from sessions recorded in studios and at the houses of friends. But instead of being a ragtag collection of odds and sods, the result is a soaring testimony to someone who was an unsung great in his lifetime.