Delbert McClinton's virtues are plain, but they're hardly simple. He's too much of a hybrid and vocal wizard ever to be simple. His is the slow, worldly smile. Lust is basic, his voice emphasizes, but getting it satisfied is a matter of infinite calculation. Hell, you could even fall in love, a complication that seems to be the implied theme of Keeper of the Flame, the tenderest of McClinton's seven solo albums.

The relenting, vulnerable side of McClinton that's emerging here isn't immediately apparent, mostly because producer Johnny Sandlin has allowed the instrumental tracks to come up too bright and glossy. McClinton's artfulness has never been helped by singing with a letter-perfect band: he can travel all over the lot, from R&B to country music to jump blues, on his own rowdy recognizance. Indeed, the chaste speediness of the various session musicians on such oldies as Chuck Berry's "I'm Talking about You" and Don Covay and Steve Cropper's "Seesaw" seems to hogtie the star of the show.

"Two More Bottles of Wine," perhaps the artist's most famous tune, doesn't lose its cutting edge, however. Born as a steel-guitar country shuffle, it's now more like a piano blues, which gives McClinton a good chance to display his steady, forceful vocal. You can almost hear his tongue cluck after each well-chosen bit of phrasing.

Keeper of the Flame's finest track, though, is its other McClinton composition, "I Received a Letter." On paper, the song seems little more than a string of near clichés. But each is so eloquently and emotionally declaimed that you'd swear the singer was making it up on the spot. Very moving. Delbert McClinton ought to trust his own talent more often. (RS 306)

FRED SCHRUERS