If you don’t know about them, let me clue y’all in.
The Bluesbusters featured five very talented musicians that made
their name mostly in other acts. Paul Barrere was of course a lead vocalist,
guitarist, slide guitarist in Little Feat. On Keyboards was the late
T.Lavitz. T spent most of his time in another great band, The Dixie Dregs.
Freebo was on bass. He previously added the boogie to the woogie of Ms.
Bonnie Raitt. Larry Zack was the drummer;
he’d been keeping the beat for artists like Jackson Browne, David Lindley
and Warren Zevon. The other front man in the band was the great Bob
“Catfish” Hodge. He’s recorded many albums with his own band.This was the
bands third and final album. It was released in 1986 and follows In Time in
1981 and even a Christmas release in 1984.
It hard to find much on line about Accept No Substitute as it’s been out of
print for some time.As expected, most of the tunes here are in the classic
blues-rock vein that you’d figure from these gents. That’s what they play,
and damn, they play it well! I love the opening number, “If the Phone Don’t
Ring.” I have this song on the video playlist so be sure to check it out. In
fact, let’s talk about the playlist. Not surprisingly, I wasn’t able to find
any promo videos, but I was able to find some great live goodies. I have
about four live songs from this album plus some classic Little Feat tunes.
“Catfish” sings a few of his originals as well. They’re not of the best
quality but they’re not bad at all!
What ever happened to the Bluesbusters? Well a few years later, Paul
reformed Little Feat and T reformed The Dixie Dregs. That was it. ~Review
Larry Carta
