In recent years, more of James Booker’s recordings have made it to CD, and this is a great thing. The latest is this concert from Manchester England in 1977 during his European tour. Although the recording quality is slightly echoey, the piano is more or less in tune and Booker is on top of his game. The most interesting thing about this recording is the presence of tunes that have rarely had an official release. Beside having good versions of his standards such as “Junko Partner” (with his trademark Woody Woodpecker laugh and a short explanation of the word cocaine) and “Black Night,” there are smoking versions of the instrumentals “Pixie” and “Blues Minuet.” Then, even rarer for a Booker release, after a short Little Richard medley, a band joins him on a medley of “Hound Dog” and “Hambone,” his first single that he barely ever played live. The band does an adequate job behind Booker, not even coming close to his backing band on the record Classified, but definitely better than the heavy, plodding trio that tries to follow him on the Montreux Jazzfest 1978 recordings. But even an adequate band can’t silence Booker’s manic energy and dense, unrelenting groove.