Sweet Tea by Buddy Guy 

I've owned and sold Sweet Tea, I think, twice over. When it was released in 2001 I hated it, and I think I bought it again in the late 00s and still didn't like it enough to keep it. I decided to give it another go when I found it going cheap at Amoeba. Third time's the charm. I now understand why I didn't like it, and can listen to it differently, not in continuity with Buddy's modern material but as a break from that. This aims to be a dirty, gritty, deep south blues album with nothing like Buddy's habitual lush sound. That's what I was after, I guess, and why I disliked it previously. Having said that the album is not perfect, it's a too overproduced for the kind of music it proposes, but it's an interesting and pleasant listen. The acoustic opener Done Got Old is worth the price of admission alone (reminiscent of Buddy on Live and Acoustic) but the rest is a good, deep take on down to earth blues. Sometimes it rambles a bit too much, and a few tunes don't work, but all in all it's not worth getting rid of it a third time: there's enough good stuff on it to make it a keeper.