The opener, "Beach Weather", sets up the album as a showcase for Johnson's highly accomplished piano playing. Rich McDonough provides the perfect foil on guitar, right down to the Hawaiian inspired solo, and Larry Thurston handles most of the vocals. The band are in fine form throughout--all the music was recorded live in the studio, and the vocals are all single takes--and they sound like they had a lot of fun during recording.

Although best known for his work with Chuck Berry, Johnson was also Albert King's band leader for a while. The King sound features strongly on the epic "The Blues Don't Knock", with Johnson's piano providing the glue that holds all the pieces together. His finest moments, however, come on "Lucky Four", starting with a cracking solo intro, and maintaining the standard throughout.

The band take things down home on "Better Sell My House" where Victor 'Big Daddy' Johnson delivers the Wolf-like vocals. Then it is all change once more as the tempo gets ramped up for the rocking closer "A Good Day".

"Johnnie Be Eighty..." stands as a fitting epitaph to Johnnie Johnson who died on April 13th, 2005. It is a finely crafted project that highlights Johnson's classy piano playing, in the company of an appropriately sympathetic band. The only real drawback is that there is not enough of it!

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