Evidence Music’s release of Larry Garner’s 1995 Baton Rouge makes the hard-to-find import available for the first time domestically. Though the Baton Rouge guitarist feels the blues as deeply as any of his better-known colleagues—witness the sensuous stroll of “Blues Pay My Way” or the romping attack on “Help Yourself”—the truth is Garner’s a modern bluesman with a refreshingly unique sensibility. His strong, finely crafted songs cover such pioneer genre topics as the perils of video poker (“New Bad Habit”) or missed gigs due to airline foul-ups (“Airline Blues”), subjects that in essence reshape the image of the traditional bluesman.

Besides the atypical song fodder, Garner writes in a palette of styles that are atypical as well. Some flip into hip-dippin’ jazz funk (“Street Doctor”); “High on Music” pulsates to a seductive reggae beat while Garner morally questions narcotic usage when blues is a better release. Whether it’s the disparity between the afflicted and the ruling on the country-ish “The Haves and Have Nots” or the need for gospel music (“Gotta Have Some Gospel”), Garner’s messages are mustered with conviction and it’s a powerful spread at that.

No doubt zealots of Louisiana music will find the fiery finale “Go to Baton Rouge” to be the rave of the whole enchilada. Garner so sagely states that the blues are not in Mamou, home of the Cajun stomp, Shreveport, scene of the country thang nor Lafayette where they zydeco. If you want the blues, head over to Baton Rouge where ‘you can hear a bluesman do his thing,’ as the song says. And if Larry Garner’s around, that’s a pretty good place to be.