A brilliant and prolific artist, John Hammond’s reputation can only improve with a release this good. Compared to earlier albums (Hammond’s recording career goes back over 40 years), Push Comes To Shove has a stronger emphasis on originals, and there are certainly some good ones here. The title track is a stop time stormer with lots of heavy-handed guitar. So too is “If You Want To Rock & Roll,” with its Stevie Ray Vaughn/Fabulous Thunderbirds shadings. “Butter” is in the fast lane, too, flaunting a funky Lowell Fulson “Tramp” arrangement. Hammond breaks out the steel-bodied National and his slide on the gutbucket blues “You Know That’s Cold,” which features some really low down lyrics (“You know that’s cold / when your woman says you’re too damn old!” Are those not the middle age blues, Daddy-O?). Hammond covered Freddy King’s “Tore Down” back in the 1960s, but with producer G. Love in tow, he gets a very hip contemporary urban blues sound. His treatment of Jr. Wells’ “Come On In This House” is also true, as his recycling of Lightnin’ Slim’s spirited “Mean Ol’ Lonesome Train.” There’s a lot to like here if the blues is your thing.