's 2015 compilation kicks off with 's signature tune "Ain't Got No Home," but it's not the familiar hit version released on ' imprint in 1956. It's a version cut for eight years later, a subsidiary of that is perhaps better understood in this context as an East Texas outpost of the Crescent City, a place where could hunker down with record man as they set about re-creating the feel of 's records. Some of these recordings have shown up on various recordings over the years but they've never been paired with the sides made for the Nashville-based in the late '60s, nor have they been released alongside early-'70s sessions , who put these songs out on his short-lived label. It's a bit of a convoluted road for the easy-rolling , complicated further by how some of these sides are unreleased, while others first showed up on the 1999 disc . Despite the messy discography-- through all the replications and cheerful attempts at riding the shifting fashions, whether he's doing a reggae version of "Sea Cruise" or ripping off 's arrangement of "In the Jailhouse Now" with the tacit approval of -- Henry usually sounds just like his idol, , always warm and friendly, happily rolling along with the rhythms and making everything sound easy. Sometimes, the pleasure here is in hearing lie back, to hear him luxuriate in the steady roll of the New Orleans rhythms, but he's so good at this that the departures that pop up toward the end of the collection - how "Hummin' a Heartache" itches to veer away from the Big Easy, the harder blues of "It Went to Your Head," the near straight-ahead country of "We'll Take Our Last Walk Tonight," the spaced-out rock-funk of "Rock Down in My Shoe," the proto-disco "Sock-A-Dilly Alabam" -- wind up making a stronger impression, even when there's no doubt that was at his best when he stuck to New Orleans...even when he was recording that R&B in Texas and Tennessee. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine