This is my Saturday night/Sunday morning mix. At my house, marking the ebb and flow of days is almost ritual. For years, my wife Robyn and I did not officially end our week and signal the beginning of the weekend without dropping the needle on Hound Dog Taylor’s “Genuine House Rocking Music” LP. Still, when I hear Hound Dog say, “Ok baby look out honey let’s go to town town……” at the beginning of “Gonna Send You Back to Georgia,” it feels like Friday night and a highball full of bourbon. Most of those nights, the record played through both sides before we were properly ready for whatever we had planned. If this record can’t rock your house, you live in a storm cellar.

As important as it is to begin Saturday night right, I like bringing the weekend to a peaceful, recuperative close with some serious soul singing. One of the things my friend and fellow former member of the Southern Baptist Cult Jim Dickinson and I bonded over, was the fact that good old-time gospel singing was the only church we could ever get behind and maybe the only keys to the kingdom you can hang your hat on.

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Nothing says some of these can’t be transposed from Saturday to Sunday and vice versa. No judgement.

Monday through Thursday, I usually cook while listening to Merle, George, Willie and Conway, but I’m getting off topic…….

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1. Gonna Send You Back to Georgia – Hound Dog Taylor
2. Mas Y Mas – Los Lobos
3. Down Home Girl – Alvin Robinson
4. I’m Looking for a Woman – Bo Diddley
5. I Think She Likes Me – Treat Her Right
6. Old Black Mattie – R.L. Burnside
7. Bald Head – Bobby King & Terry Evans
8. Love and Happiness – Al Green
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9. Freedom Highway – Staple Singers
10. How Far Am I from Canaan – Sam Cook and the Soul Stirrers
11. Up Above My Head – Sister Rosetta
12. I Shall Not Be Moved – Pops Staples
13. When I Lay My Burdens Down – Mississippi Fred McDowell
14. Precious Lord – Mahalia Jackson

Greg Spradlin is “the best guitarist in the state.”

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