Consumer Guide Album

Z.Z. Hill: I'm a Blues Man [Malaco, 1983]
The title boast is inauspicious. If Hill's 1981 Down Home turned into a phenomenal 450,000-sold-and-counting sleeper on mere stylistic integrity, then why didn't his 1982 The Rhythm and the Blues do almost as well? You guessed it--song quality went way down. But after the bad start it rebounds considerably here. Personal to Tommy Couch: is Jimmy Lewis ready for another album of his own, or is he a stay-at-home? B+