Me and Mr. Johnson

Eric Clapton’s Me and Mr. Johnson is a full-band album and will likely become a coffee-table album. Clapton sounds reinvigorated in these 14 songs by crossroads soul-salesman Robert Johnson, with phlegm in his throat and (relative) fire in his belly. It’s not without some 12-bar sameness, but Johnson also has brisk turns like ”They’re Red Hot,” where Billy Preston’s double-time piano delightfully illuminates the ragtime-rock link.