What’s Chicago’s most versatile, Native American headdress-wearing bluesman doing playing in tandem with America’s finest Mexican Wrestling League mask-wearing instrumental combo??? What do they have in common besides unusually good taste in headwear? Why, they’re slinging out a jolly good-times-roll gumbo of blues, rock & roll and New Orleans R&B, spiced with some country twang and surf spray. It’s very fitting they cover Fats Domino’s "Let The Four Winds Blow" - in many ways, this whole album is a virtual tribute to the loping, jovial, soulful tune-age of the N.O. guy They Call Fats. No, this is not one for the Purists - Los Straightjackets are def. not a "blues band" per se, but a versatile rockin’ outfit that mix inspired élan with a spunky joie de vive. The Chief sings with a rollicking, devil-may-care, got-the-world-on-a-string voice that recalls Fats D, Amos Milburn and Slim Harpo. If you’re seeking old formulae turned upside-down & insight-out, you’re en route to the wrong pad, dad - for example, "Hillbilly Blues" is naught but an offhand Chuck Berry retread, but as offhand retreads go, it’s one of the dandiest you’re likely to hear this year - but, if you want to be transported a Gulf Coast bar where the fun never ends or imagine yerself inside a mythical Juke Joint That Transcendth All Knowing with a fistful of nickels for the jukebox and the bartender’s your best pal, take the next turnpike turnoff to Rock ‘n’ Roll City - this is one of the roots-y party platters of ’03.