Robert Finley’s story is far from a conventional music one. Though he turns 70 in February, his solo recording career stretches back a mere seven years Discovered by the Music Maker Relief Foundation in 2015, and having lost his sight at age 60, Finley released his debut, Age Don’t Mean A Thing, in 2016. From the off, you could tell something special was afoot, but it was clear the author hadn’t needed to push himself too hard and the lyrics were well-worn and familiar: women cheat, snakes are always dirty. By his second outing, his first with Dan Auerbach producing, Finley had learnt how to dig deep to find the kind of swagger the title, Goin’ Platinum!, deserved. Some of his lines, many of the images, were worthy of Dylan (“I fixed the chain on your rusty swing, I might even teach your bird to sing” on Honey, Let Me Stay The Night; “I been a king so long, and I always draw first blood” on Three Jumpers), and the grooves were straight out of the Stones playbook

As the title suggests, the songs on Black Bayou deal with life in Finley’s locale, northern Louisiana.  On the opening soulfully grooved Livin’ Out a Suitcase, Finley, in his gravelly, gutbucket voice basks in the joy he brings to audiences when performing. The funky, salacious Sneakin’ Around speaks to the age-old blues subject of hearsay about one’s transgressions. Miss Kitty is a pleading stomper with Finley at his swampy best as Auerbach and Brown’s swirl around him, and Deaton, a Hill Country specialist, holds down a filthy bassline while Finley’s daughters fill the choruses on the high end. Finley reinforces his affection for his home turf in the soul-blues of Waste Of Time, where anything relating to living in a city is just as the title says. He begins Can’t Blame Me For Trying with the story of a girl he’s known for a long time who has been a tattletale. He states his own case defiantly with the syncopated funk and blazing guitar lead adding extra punch to his words.  Slide guitar introduces the buoyant standout Gospel Blues, (“in order to get to heaven you got to go through hell every time”)

In the soul ballad,  Nobody Wants to Be Lonely, Finley exudes empathy, relating how he visits a friend in a nursing home, something that he makes a regular practice. His daughters shine in support. The rousing, radio-friendly What Goes Around (Comes Around) sums up his life philosophy of resilience and accepting the good with the bad in just a few well-chosen words. He takes optimism to a higher level, nodding to being at peace with the right woman in another ballad, Lucky Day. He duets with his daughter on the snappy You Got It (And I Need It) before closing with the album highlight, Alligator Bait, the harrowing tale about how his grandfather wronged him

Black Bayou is surely the album Finley was put on Earth to create, filled with stories only he could tell. Here is a good man trying to do his best yet trapped between Heaven and the hellish reality of a cruel world, juggling love and lust, and fearsome yet fearful in a landscape determinedly resistant to the genteel encroachments of civilisation. “Once I get to Heaven, all my troubles will be over,” he declares optimistically, but you know he is aware that, even at 70, there are still many obstacles in his way, and there is much ground, and a lot of swamp, still to be investigated.