So Many Roads
is
Hammond
's most notable mid-'60s
Vanguard
album, due not so much to
's own singing and playing (though he's up to the task) as the yet-to-be-famous backing musicians. Three future members of
the Band
--
Robbie Robertson
,
Garth Hudson
, and
Levon Helm
-- are among the supporting cast, along with
Charlie Musselwhite
on harmonica, and
Mike Bloomfield
also contributes. It's one of the first fully realized
blues-rock
albums, although it's not in the same league as the best efforts of the era by the likes of
the Paul Butterfield Blues Band
or
John Mayall's Bluesbreakers
. In part that's because the repertoire is so heavy on familiar
Chicago blues
classics by the likes of
Willie Dixon
Bo Diddley
Muddy Waters
; in part that's because the interpretations are so reverent and close to the originals in arrangement; and in part it's also because
's
blues
vocals were only okay. Revisionist critics thus tend to downgrade the record a notch. But in the context of its time -- when songs like
"Down in the Bottom,"
"Long Distance Call,"
"Big Boss Man,"
and
"You Can't Judge a Book By the Cover"
were not as well known as they would become -- it was a punchy, well-done set of electric
with a
rock
touch. ~ Richie Unterberger