Almost nobody can beat Tab Benoit for playing raw, dirty-sounding roadhouse blues. There is something about when he gets to rocking that gets everybody going in the way the best blues and rock ‘n’ roll should. Even his guitar tone has that slash-through-your-speakers/earbuds psycho tone that everyone from Travis Wammack to Johnny Guitar Watson to Earl King perfected in the middle of last century. Benoit’s new record, Medicine, is his latest entry to a great body of work. It’s got some great rockers and shuffles and all-out, shake-what-your-mama- gave-you boogie tunes.

Benoit was lucky to get Anders Osborne to produce, play guitar, and co-write seven tunes. Anyone who has seen the Voice of the Wetlands All Stars knows how simpatico these two musicians are. Osborne is no stranger to great guitar as his latest CD attests, but where his presence is definitely felt is in the slower and quieter songs. On previous CDs from Benoit, the slower numbers have been good, but not as intense as the louder cuts. Here tunes like “Long Lonely Bayou” (augmented by the beautiful violin of Michael Doucet) maintain the heat that the uptempo songs have in the same way that such dynamics contrast on Osborne’s recordings. And the gritty South Louisiana bayou soul that is Benoit’s voice adds a little extra to this recording, whether it’s the edge of the angry accusation at those who have ruined the wetlands in “Whole Lotta Soul” or the raspy sweetness of his take on the subdudes’ comforting “Next to Me.” All combined, Tab Benoit’s new CD is good medicine indeed.