Decked out in tight-fitting dresses and pounding her keyboard with feverish abandon, Marcia Ball blazed her way across the '70s Southwest blues scene and into the national spotlight. A singer of unusual clarity and a songwriter given to sassy twists of phrase, she delivered the goods especially well on 1989's Gatorhythms. This disc crossbred Ball's Texas-style barroom R&B with the Creole grooves of her native Louisiana. As always, her inspired touch on the piano is the album's centerpiece, rolling and tumbling across such steamy tracks as the Dr. John-penned "How You Carry On." She reaches deep inside to bring a palpable longing to "The Power of Love" and "Find Another Fool." Ball shakes some irresistible Cajun spice into "Daddy Said" and "Red Hot" (the latter a collaboration with country singer/guitarist Lee Roy Parnell). A joyous trip into the funk-drenched depths of bajou country, Gatorhythms is Ball at her unbridled best.