As I said, Eddie is one of the best Barrelhouse style players I've heard. It's not just that he's a hot keyboard player — because I'm sure there are hotter ones — or that he's got the greatest voice in the world; it's the way he uses his talents that make him so good. He doesn't just play the piano; he teases and coaxes notes from it so it sings in the way that's specific to honky-tonks and old juke joints.

Listen to him playing "Please Send Me Someone To Love" on Slippin In and you'll hear what I'm talking about. In the wrong person's hands this would be the biggest piece of shalmtz this side of Las Vegas, but under his care this song sounds like the plea it should be. His fingers gently pull notes from the piano that are redolent with the sadness of a lonely man, while his voice, down in the lower register, states his case in an almost matter of fact manner. There's something that much more poignant about a song like this when it's delivered as a simple plea for compassion instead of the melodramatic howl that so many people seem to believe is what constitutes emotion.

The musicians he plays with are taking their cues from Eddie and you can feel it in the way they have all caught the less-is-more attitude his playing exemplifies. Listening to his composition, the instrumental "Slippin In", primarily a Hammond Organ and guitar duet, makes this really clear. Instead of either Eddie or his guitar player, Felix Reyes, playing speed of light solos with millions of notes that you never hear, they make each note they play tell a story. I'm not a big fan of organ music normally, but the way Eddie uses his Hammond made a convert out of me on this occasion. There was something about the way he was able to nurse the notes out of that instrument that made it sing beautiful harmony with the guitar unlike anything I've heard in along time.

Eddie Tigner is a great all around Blues piano player who can handle everything from a straight-ahead Blues number like "Need Your Love So Bad", to the rollicking swing of "Knock Me A Kiss". He can sing it slow and sweet, or fast and loose, and sound equally comfortable and always sound like he means every word he sings. There aren't many people left who can do justice to Barrelhouse Blues/honky-tonk music anymore, but Eddie Tigner's Slippin In is proof that there are still some who have what it takes to make your spine get loose and remind you that you have hips.