Reverend Organdrum? It might sound like a new character on "Saturday Night Live," but it's really punk-rockabilly ace Reverend Horton Heat's new side band. He uses his real name (Jim Heath) and teams up with Hammond B3 whiz Tim Alexander and acrobatic drummer Todd Soesbe. They feature a familiar jazz-organ trio lineup, but the music is mostly in a rootsy vein of "blues, rockabilly, soul, funk, lounge, and the kitchen sink," as Heath describes it in the liner notes. It adds up to a lively, all-covers mélange of retro movie themes by Henry Mancini and Nelson Riddle, R&B nuggets by Ray Charles and Booker T. & the MG's, rearranged jazz tunes by Duke Ellington and Roland Kirk, snappy surf-rock by Duane Eddy, and, maybe for the kitchen-sink part, a cover of the Young Rascals's "Groovin'." It's background music one minute, then a scorching, in-your-face jam the next. It's clearly a kitschy side project, but it is ably performed and ratchets up Heath's rep as a guitarslinger. [Steve Morse]
ESSENTIAL "Theme to Route 66"
