Mark Lemhouse's Big Lonesome Radio offers reverential treatments of blues by masters like Fred McDowell, Johnny Shines, and Charley Patton alongside some tasty originals and a few surprises. All of this is filtered through a Tom Waits-like contemporary sensibility most evident in the original "Edwin's Lament." There's even a Waits penned number that sounds perfectly in place alongside the more traditional tunes. Recorded with period microphones live onto analog tape in the warehouse-like Easly McCain Studios of Memphis, it sounds like we're hearing Lemhouse's guitar straight from an old Fender amp set up in front of a wall on some street corner. To enhance the effect, his instrument is always mixed way out in front of everything else. On a variety of guitars(National Steel, lap-steel, acoustic, and electric), Lemhouse shows off a rhythmic thumb and a vigorous attack. Vocally and instrumentally, his approach creates irrepressible, energetic barrelhouse music. Throughout, Lemhouse's playing is raucous, rhythmic, very rough, and always right.