When I moved to Austin, Texas in 1981, I was a raving metalhead, but a brat waiting to grow up. Whenever I listened to guitar masters, like Jimi Hendrix, Frank Marino, or Uli Roth, I felt like I was getting an education. In my new hometown there was a guitarist that all the locals bragged about - Stevie Ray Vaughan. It is no great exaggeration to say I could go out and see Stevie Ray play at least two weekends a month. He was a regular at places like The Continental Club or the infamous Antone's. Here was a guitar player that played with authority. He could be coaxing the most amazing sounds out of his guitar, but just be smacking his chewing gum as calm as could be. People loved this guy, because he was so genuine and so full of style. He borrowed from those before him, but he controlled that big, fat tone like a master. He was easy to take for granted, like he'd be around forever, and it was fun in a prideful sort of way when the rest of the world caught on to his talent. It was a shock when he died. Now, in the shadow of a guy like Stevie Ray, Mr. Craig Erickson is probably just another guitar player. But not every average guitar player can ask guys like Glenn Hughes and Rob Lamothe (Riverdogs) to sing on their albums! Craig's probably not a legend in the making, but he just does everything right. His clean and confident playing stands up and screams, "Hey! Look at me!" And then backs it up. He avoids mistakes, he plays what he knows, and, like the masters, he makes his guitar sing. I don't quite hear a signature sound, but I love what I hear. His pairing up with these two powerhouse vocalists is a great match. Glenn both shows off and sits right in the groove; while Rob (Oh, how I love that first Riverdogs album... Quite a spiritually sounding disc, I might add.) soars with passion and reigns in these energies just perfectly, so as to allow his signature rough vocals to be as smooth as liquid. It's music like this that really melts all my pretensions of trying to be cool or worrying about whether or not I'm liking the band that everyone is supposed to like. I think I'll just put a big piece of duct tape over my car's CD player, cause I'm purposefully going to get this one stuck on Repeat Play. Recommended if you like Guardian, Brother Cane, Lance Keltner, and Ian Moore.