Oakland-area bluesman Craig Horton's released another sure-fire blues winner in his latest Bad Daddy CD, Touch of the Bluesman. There's good reasons why the Bay Area Blues Society voted Craig Horton the 2004 Blues Guitar Player of the Year and the 2004 Blues Band of the Year, and you'll hear them on this CD. There's a dozen cuts of electric blues that should get Craig Horton some well-deserved publicity outside the greater San Francisco bay blues community. The hard-charging "Life of Luxury," or the slow and simmering "Elizabeth" bookend Horton's considerable blues gifts: he's equally adept at tearing up the fretboard as well as singing a slow blues ballad steeped in lost love. Producer Rusty Zinn (yes, the same Rusty Zinn that's recorded on Alligator and performed with Kim Wilson and Nick Moss) captures Horton with a crisp and balanced sound, and his liner notes tell it all about "a great bluesman and a true original." Right on, Rusty.