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There's a store near me - appropriately named The Archive - that sells used books, comics, magazines, old trading cards, old post cards, records, CDs, DVDs, video games, toys, pop culture memorabilia and more. Are you looking for old Mad Magazines? They have them. Old Atari game cartridges? It's a possiblity. The place looks, feels and smells just like the musty warehouse it is, and I love it. None of The Archive's music is ever sold at collector's prices. Anyone can go in and pay a buck a piece for CDs and even their more in-demand vinyl is nicely priced. I visit there on occasion just to see what I can find. That's where I discovered the genre bending, classic album by Ray Charles, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music ,   originally released by ABC-Paramount Records on a 12-inch LP way back in 1962 and on CD by Rhino Records in 1988 with three bonus tracks. First, a little background for those of you who are unaware of the original ...

Stevie Ray Vaughan - deservedly elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015 along with his band Double Trouble - is sorely missed. Sadly, Vaughan left us more than a quarter of a century ago with a discography that's limited in size due to his early passing in a tragic helicopter crash. In Step was the fourth and last studio album Vaughan recorded with Double Trouble, and it was the last one to be released in his lifetime. It went to #33 on Billboard's top 200 album chart. SRV's actual final recording was Family Style , an album on which he shared equal billing with his brother, Jimmie, who is best known for his work with The Fabulous Thunderbirds. Another excellent set, The Sky Is Crying , was issued posthumously two years later, but it was assembled from unreleased tracks found in the vaults. In Step is a fine record, and it opens with a blast. "The House is Rockin'" is nothing fancy, just good old fas...

Hammond B-3 jazz master Jimmy Smith (1925 - 2005) is someone whose music I've always enjoyed, but I've never owned any of his work until recently. While perusing the used jazz bins at a local, independent record store I saw his 2001 collaborative CD and grabbed it without reading any of the liner notes, so I really didn't know what I was buying. I would have preferred to have picked up a set that was truly a showcase for Smith's virtuosity, but it's my fault that I didn't. The disc, Dot Com Blues , is over an hour long with eleven tracks. Five of them feature guest vocalists, and that's more than any other full-length record Smith has ever released. William Ruhlmann of AllMusic  accurately described this album as Smith's version of Santana's  Supernatural  record - an attempt to "broaden his appeal" by bringing in a lot of guests. All of the singers spotlighted here identify more with blues than jazz and h...

The original Indigenous were a young, blues-rock, family band who released Things We Do , their national debut album, in 1998. The lineup included two brothers, their sister, and a cousin. They grew up together on the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota and are members of the Nakota tribe. As a unit, they made four more albums and two EPs before calling it quits in 2006. After the split, singer and guitarist Mato Nanji continued using the Indigenous name with new sidemen while his family pursued other endeavors. On this excellent disc Nanji was supported by his brother, Pte, who played bass. Sister, Wanbdi, was the group's drummer. Their cousin, Horse, added color with his percussion work. The quartet's musical career was heavily influenced by the siblings' father, Greg Zephier, who was a musician in the 60s and 70s and later became an advocate for Native American rights. He also served as his kids' music teacher. Zephier was a bi...

Many blues purists site a lack of authenticity as a reason to dismiss an artist's work but I refuse to participate in such snobbery. If performed well a hybrid arrangement adds unique freshness to an old piece of music. The fact that the great blues singer, composer, and guitarist Chester Burnett (a.k.a Howlin' Wolf ) flew to London in 1970 to record with a few of the hottest British Invasion all-stars of the day - most of them heavily influenced by the blues - shouldn't make the music any less compelling. The participants on The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions include Eric Clapton on lead guitar, Steve Winwood on piano and organ, and three men with Rolling Stones connections: bassist Bill Wyman, drummer Charlie Watts, and pre-worldwide fame Stones' pianist,  Ian Stewart .  Hubert Sumlin - Wolf's devoted longtime sideman - provided rhythm guitar throughout these sessions. Even Ringo Starr proved he could play the blues on one tra...

Here's another revised blast from the past. This post was originally published on October 1, 2009, and today it serves as a tribute to British blues great, John Mayall, whose passing was announced today at the age of 90.   John Mayall's most important gift to rock' n roll lies not with his own playing, singing, and songwriting but with his tremendous ability to discover outstanding talent. Among the all-stars and Hall of Famers whose careers he helped launch are Peter Green, John McVie, and Mick Fleetwood who all eventually left to organize Fleetwood Mac. Mick Taylor also left Mayall to replace Brian Jones in the Rolling Stones, and Andy Fraser started Free. His most illustrious 60s graduate, Eric Clapton, wrote on Mayall's website a while back, "John Mayall has actually run an incredibly great school for musicians."   Clapton eventually left Mayall too and formed Cream with...

Almost as often as aficionados of classical music do, blues fans are willing to listen to updated versions of ancient compositions originally written or recorded by the old masters. Perhaps this is because many of them were produced on old, scratchy, well-worn, 78 RPM records, so new, clean, high-fidelity interpretations are welcome. One of the young talents resurrecting old blues is newcomer Muireann (pronounced " moor -un") Bradley from County Donegal, Ireland. This talented young lady just turned seventeen and recently released her twelve song debut album, I Kept These Old Blues , that was recorded over a three year period with just her voice and her very accomplished acoustic guitar work. The teenager learned to love the blues from her father, John Bradley, who you could say is besotted with the music of the country-blues artists from as long as a hundred years ago. Muireann elaborat...

With the remaining members all well into their 70s and Charlie Watts already gone Blue & Lonesome is more than likely The Rolling Stones' last studio album, and it's their only full length record since The Bigger Bang  was released way back in 2005. It's also a surprise because there isn't a single Keith Richards / Mick Jagger original song anywhere. Instead, Blue & Lonesome offers up twelve raw covers of old blues tunes, many that predate the infamous British rockers' career. I've written here before that when an artist releases an album of all cover songs it's often because he or she has run out of inspiration while still having contractual obligations to fulfill. It is to the Stones' credit that they didn't fall into that fatal trap by releasing an album that often puts the nail in the coffin of many formerly great and productive careers. Blue & Lonesome sounds like a true labor of love. The blues are what inspired Jagger and...

While it may have only reached #136 on Billboard's top 200 albums chart Buddy Guy's most famous release,  Damn Right, I've Got The Blues , is considered his commercial comeback after almost a decade away from the studio. It won a Grammy in 1992 for Best Contemporary Blues Album. Let it be said that these ten songs make a "damn" fine album that is typical of Guy. He doesn't offer listeners anything fresh or innovative - just his always great singing and axe work - and for me that is good enough.  Even though the album is a star-studded affair with Mark Knopfler, Jeff Beck, and Eric Clapton all joining the blues legend on various tracks Guy dominates the sessions - as he should - it's his record. The classic rockers are simply supporting players who blend in as sidemen. If they were replaced by studio players I couldn't tell the difference. The drummer is the late Richie Hayward, a longtime member of Little Feat who lays down a solid groove for Guy to w...

The late Jamesetta Hawkins - known to the world as Etta James - was a lady who could belt out the blues like no other woman could. Her high octane vocal chords possessed a lot of horsepower, but she always added just the right amount of nuance, and that made her the perfect blueswoman. In 1992 James worked with legendary producer Jerry Wexler for the second time to make  The Right Time , an album that should be a classic. The sessions took place at Alabama's renowned Muscle Shoals Studios. The band Wexler and James assembled comported themselves as the all-stars they truly were. The lineup included Lucky Peterson, Jimmy Johnson and Stax's Steve Cropper on guitars. Alto saxman Hank Crawford anchored the horn section. The sax solos, probably by Crawford, are outstanding.  Steve Ferrone - famous for his work with Tom Petty and the Average White Band - manned the drums, and Willie Weeks handled the bass as part of the superb rhythm section.  James is not known as a songwrite...

Cream was another victim of the infighting and creative differences that frequently plague and bring an end to many renowned bands, yet Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker managed to go out the way they began - by playing virtuosic rock that is still listenable today. Cream's last record, Goodbye , is brief by their standards. It clocks in at just over thirty minutes and to their credit it lacks the excessively long jams that were the trio's specialty and sometimes their Achilles heal. There are no side-long, fifteen minute drum solos, like Baker's "Toad," that will either bore or annoy you. The three live tracks from side one show the group to be at their blues-rock best with all three of them playing stupendous stuff. Clapton is his usual God-like self, but the real star is Bruce whose bass work is so dazzling that he proves to be more than a supporting player. On the 9:12, live take of "I'm So Glad" he's in the forefront as much as Clapt...

This is another old post that was originally published here on April 21, 2011. It's both a history lesson on The Rolling Stones and a tribute to an original member, the late Ian Stewart. This post is more than a review, it's also a history lesson. The late Ian Stewart (July 18, 1938 – December 12, 1985) was a founding member of The Rolling Stones. He preceded everyone but Brian Jones into the group when he was the first to respond to an ad Jones placed in a newspaper looking for musicians to start a new band. Stewart, whose nickname was "Stu," staked out a reputation for himself as a great piano player who loved big band jazz, R & B, blues, and boogie woogie. Stewart's physique was on the hefty side. He wore his hair differently and he was a few years older than the rest of the Stones. He didn't look the part, so in 1963, their manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, decided Stu was too uncool for the image he was marketing - and that six guys on stage was to...

Big Brother and the Holding Company was a mediocre band that would be totally forgotten today except for one very important asset. Their singer and frontwoman was the legendary Janis Joplin, perhaps the most highly regarded, female, white blues and rock singer in history. The band's most famous song off of their debut LP is the single "Down On Me." It's a cover of an old folk song that has at least five earlier recorded versions dating back to 1930 including a few rare field recordings (songs recorded outside of a studio). Joplin is credited on the band's single as the song's sole arranger. She also wrote some new lyrics that gave the historic piece a more uplifting message than the earlier, more serious recordings. Big Brother's brief, 2:06, 45 RPM stays true to the band's raw, acid-rock sound and features Joplin wailing away at full throttle, but with just enough restraint to get the song played on AM radio. Real, earthy, blues-oriented hard rock was...

J. J. Cale (1938 -2013) always lived on the fringes of fame so I guess you would have to call him a cult artist. Such is the fate of a lot of musicians who have been large influences on many of the world's most famous stars. That said, I've never known anyone who heard Cale's music and didn't like it. For all of you who are new to Cale, he wrote "After Midnight" and "Cocaine," both heavily associated with Eric Clapton in the 70s. Cale's best known top 40 hit was "Crazy Mama," way back in 1972. It peaked at #22 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was his only Top 40 hit. Cale's The Definitive Collection,   a twenty track, single disc retrospective, includes all three tracks mentioned above plus "Call Me the Breeze" covered by Lynyrd Skynyrd, Johnny Cash, and John Mayer. Lucinda Williams, Poco, Beck, Johnny Rivers, John Mayall, Tom Petty, and a host of other devotees have also covered Cale's work. What is most appealing a...

Stevie Ray Vaughan, center, with Double Trouble & John Hammond on right It took over a year for my wife and I to clean out my late father-in-law's house that was loaded with five decades of possessions he never threw away. It was extremely time consuming. Just like everyone else, we've been stuck at home lately so we decided it's now time to clean out our house. We want to do it now because in the future, when there is possibly only one of us, the survivor will not have to spend more time than necessary getting rid of stuff that is no longer needed or wanted. We were also inspired to purge -  believe it or not - by Ringo Starr. A few years ago the drummer and his wife decided to sell a lot of his memorabilia including the famous drum kit he used while rising to international superstardom with The Beatles. It was the set you see in hundreds of pictures, the one he used to record many of their early hits. It's the one he played on The Ed Sullivan Show . I decided that...

I offer my deepest apologies to those people who believe the Rolling Stones really were the "world's greatest rock 'n' roll band" because I'm about to commit rock 'n' roll blasphemy with this statement: Exile on Main Street , the band's 1972, double-disc LP, considered by most critics of the musical cultural elite to be one of the finest rock albums ever recorded, is an immensely bad set of songs. Maybe it's the very muddy sounding final mix that made every track, except for the two big hit singles, "Tumbling Dice" and "Happy," sound exactly the same, or is it the crudity of many of the songs. After all, what is there to like about a song titled "Turd on the Run?" Therefore, you may be surprised to find that I feel just the opposite about this compilation from Telarc consisting of ten songs from Main Street re-recorded by a crackerjack blues band along with a host of blues all-stars. Exile on Blues Street is ...

Any serious musician must have some knowledge and appreciation of the blues to have any credibility, even if it's a genre they don't work in regularly. As proof, you can hear the blues in the songs of a ton of musicians who don't have any real connection to the genre: stars such as James Taylor ("Steamroller Blues") or even Carole King. Surely you can hear Bessie Smith or Susan Tedeschi belting out "I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet" without a whole lot of effort. No blues satisfies my soul more than slow burning blues. These songs, many with extended, improvised guitar solos that often unfold at a snail's pace allow the finger-picker to stretch out and show off his chops. Intense but smoldering guitar work played by virtuosos, often supported by jazzy organ or piano fills and understated vocals, are a hallmark of the genre. Electric blues sounds like rock music to many people and acoustic blues is often thought of as folk music but real music f...

Dion DiMucci was making hit records before The Beatles actually called themselves The Beatles. Unfortunately, the singer of early R&B and doo-wop influenced hits like "The Wanderer," "I Wonder Why," and "Runaround Sue," and several years later the soft, folk-rock anthem "Abraham, Martin, and John," is largely unknown today except by people who were listening to Top 40 radio way back in the pre-British Invasion years. Most younger people have never even heard his name, let alone his music. The good news is Dion, who still only uses his first name professionally, has never left us and he's recorded dozens of albums. Much of his work is heavily influenced by the blues as is his latest set of original songs, New York Is My Home . Dion wrote or co-wrote eight of the ten tracks on this album and, while he still sings quite well at age 76, his voice sounds nothing like the one he possessed back in his hitmaking days of "Ruby Baby....

On her website Eilen Jewell said it was the blues that jump-started her interest in music back when she was a teenager in Idaho but, oddly, she never believed she was allowed pursue her passion. Jewell said, “I’ve always had this sense of self-doubt about it,” she admits. “Like, who am I to sing the blues? I’m a white girl from Idaho. I don’t know if I have a right to do that.” But she also remembers an old friend's advice: "Everyone has the right to do what they love in this world, regardless of who they are and what background they come from." Therefore, Down Hearted Blues is the singer-songwriter's first album of blues covers. Jewell recorded the album employing her usual stripped down arrangements with Jerry Miller playing outstanding electric guitar. Her husband, Jason Beek, played drums as well as washboard. The bass is an upright (unplugged, of course) and other acoustic sounds included fiddle, banjo, and mandolin. Soul-jazzman, Curtis Stigers, added so...

Photo courtesy of Karin Ricci What were you doing at age six, still learning to tie your shoes?  A very young Quinn Sullivan appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show at that age and he later performed in concert with Buddy Guy at age eight. Now, at seventeen, and old enough to dress himself, Sullivan is a proven guitar prodigy influenced by everyone from Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton to George Harrison and Stevie Ray Vaughan, just to name a few. He's also played at Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits and shared a stage with B. B. King. Hype found on the Internet is frequently exaggerated and often strategically posted to be self-serving, but in Sullivan's case the publicity is true. This young dude can play with the best of them and his idols are often in awe of him when it should be the other way around. Sullivan's live show at a small, outdoor venue in Exton, PA, whose Summer series is called Concerts On The Square, has frequently feat...