Blues and Rhythm:
"Jimmy has recorded the best set of his career, accompanied by a top-notch Chicago band of "Professor" Eddie Lusk on piano/organ, ace bass man Johnny B. Gayden, Ray Scott on drums, Billy Flynn of The Legendary Blues Band on rhythm guitar and two storming vocals by a young female singer, Nora Jean Wallace. (Jimmy) has a gift to say so, so much with a single note or riff that modern fret board wizards would do well to listen to... Unreservedly recommended."

Alabama Blues Society Newsletter:
"Jimmy Dawkins is a masterful musician. He's a brilliant song writer, an effective singer, and one of the very best West Side Chicago guitarists, with a staccato style of playing all his own... The emotional force of Dawkins' guitar is devastating... (kant shek dees bluze) is an essential album for lovers of blues guitar and anyone who looks to blues for no-holds-barred confrontation with the human condition."

Option (Sep.-Oct./92, p.99):
"..His leads have the fat, stinging tone of Otis Rush and the raw bite of Son Seals, while his voice has a brawny clarity that surpasses a contemporary like Albert Collins...the overall execution is way above average.."

There are no Jimmy Dawkins imitators. The man's guitar playing is relentless and intense, combining piercing sustain and staccato attack with a phrasing unique to him. Not only is he one of America's great blues guitarists, no one else even sounds much like him.
"I never wanted to be nobody else," he says. "I always wanted to be me, to be my own man." Although he's proud to be counted as a friend and contemporary of part of the west side blues tradition - Freddy King and Magic Sam, Dawkins' 20 year recording career stands as testimony of one man's assault on the limits of blues-guitar-as-usual. And yet, as he sings here, "fame and fortune always evaded me."
During the '70s he almost did become famous. Jimmy had already spent several years as a session guitarist, cutting backing tracks for Willie Dixon. "We made tracks with Wild Child Butler, Walter Horton, and whoever else I can't think of now. He just kept me in the studio, teaching me a lot, helping me." When Magic Sam introduced him to Delmark Records owner Bob Koester, Jimmy's axe also enlivened Delmark LPs by Carey Bell, Luther Allison, Mighty Joe Young and Sleepy John Estes. His own award-winning debut, Fast Fingers, was the first of three acclaimed Delmark LPs; seven Jimmy Dawkins albums came out during a five year period. Dawkins toured England and Europe repeatedly, played several of world's major festivals, and even appeared on the Today show, Downbeat critics voted him the best rock/pop/blues act deserving wider recognition.
This recognition, however deserved, was not to come during the 80s. Due in part to health problems, Jimmy cut back his club work during the Reagan decade, concentrating on festivals and foreign tours. New albums came out in France and England, but in the U.S. the only release was a live recording (cut in Peoria, IL) on the small Rumble label. Dawkins increasingly concentrated on the business end of the music, starting his own record label, Leric, which released singles by little known west siders like James "Tail Dragger" Jones and young vocalist Nora Jean Wallace, who sings on two tracks on this session.

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Felix Wohrstein