Released last year at the end of April, Big Daddy “O”’s fourth CD is a smoking hot mix of blues offered up by a man who has paid his dues and then some. Owen Tufts is his name, and with thirty-plus years of playing the roadhouses and ten years of CD releases and playing to larger venues with some more exposure he is surely hitting his stride as evidenced here.

  As the title implies here, most of these songs have been around the block more than once. But that’s not to say that they’re all worn out. Big Daddy ‘O’—Owen Tufts—has a laid-back, engaging style that works especially well when he plays in minor keys, which he does enjoyably often. Case-in-point is the opener, “Life Is Hard,” a slow blues that grimly reminds us “Life is hard, and then you die."

By Jeff Hannusch (Off Beat)

 Owen "Big Daddy O" Tufts ranks among the most underrated and underappreciated blues artists in south Louisiana. He has crafted a succession of unpretentious, extremely listenable excursions in both acoustic and electric formats. His latest finds his inviting voice couched in sympathetic arrangements built with organs, saxophones, guitars and drums. The sly "Better Off With the Blues" is indicative of his understated approach. So, too, his swinging cover of "Johnny B. Goode."

Keith Spera - nola.com