Alabama Slim's "Rock Me Baby" is music that stays mostly still, allowing the world to move around it and reveal its fullest heart and soul only when the listener becomes one with the music's masterful simplicity and quiet elegance.
B.B. King's passion for bringing the blues to a wider audience is in full flower on the landmark album, Indianola Mississippi Seeds.
Johnny Ray Daniels' "Somewhere to Lay My Head" is from new compilation that's a companion to a book detailing the work of artist/musician/folklorist Freeman Vines. Vines chronicles racism and injustice via his work.
The Cradle's Paco Cathcart has curated a thoughtfully multifarious album. Laughing in My Sleep is an impressive collection of 21 tracks, each unapologetic in their rejection of expectations.
Malian singer-songwriter, Afel Bocoum's Lindé is a well-polished triumph of musicianship and craft.
Jyoti's Mama, You Can Bet! is a revelation -- of time, of rhythm, of sound. It takes the free-ranging jazz sensibilities of Georgia Anne Muldrow's previous outings under the Jyoti moniker and gives them a next-level boost.
New Jersey guitar master, Billy Walton returns with an eclectic mix of sounds that demonstrates why he's a favorite in both the blues and jam band worlds. Despite Dark Hour's title, there's more than a little light to go around.
All Rise is another diamond in Gregory Porter's catalog of precious gems. There is studied wisdom, a graceful sagaciousness that accompanies the tracks.
A voice from the past re-emerges stronger and better than ever as Dianne Davidson releases Full Circle, her first album since 1988.
Soul singer Bette Smith teamed with Matt Patton of Drive-by Truckers for new album, The Good, the Bad and the Bette, that strikes several deeply personal chords. Hear her latest blistering single, "I'm a Sinner".
Bettye LaVette offers jazzy interpretations of past classics on Blackbirds.
Still going strong at 86, blues legend Bobby Rush presents "Dust My Broom" from an upcoming salute to Mississippi blues history, Rawer Than Raw, rendered in his inimitable style.
What was going to be a year of touring and building Sugaray Rayford's fanbase has turned into a year of staying home and reaching out to fans from his Arizona home.
There's a song performed in James Whale's musical, Show Boat, wherein race is revealed as a set of variegated and contradictory performances, signals to others, a manner of being seen and a manner of remaining hidden, and it isn't "Old Man River".
Charley Crockett's Welcome to Hard Times invokes the same misery and corruption as E.L. Doctorow's Welcome to Hard Times: the world is just a rigged casino where one can never get a break or even hope to break even.
Producer Scott Billington remembers capturing New Orleans piano legend James Booker's final, troubled days as a performer."One night he might wander around the club, staring at the ceiling, or he might get up and imitate Woody Woodpecker."
Bob Dylan's first album of original material since 2012, Rough and Rowdy Ways, is a suitably grim, brilliant collection of ten songs for our dark times.
For all his love of American vernacular music in its many forms, Bob Dylan has a deeply European sensibility.
Bob Dylan returns as prophet, historian, and joker on his latest album, Rough and Rowdy Ways, an unending puzzle with rich content.
Jarrod Dickenson's rootsy, broad-ranged Americana draws deeply from tradition while forging all-new sounds on Ready the Horses.
Featuring several originals paired with timeless covers, Live at the Paramount finds the Ruthie Foster Big Band bringing the house down.
Jeff Buckley's journals, photographs, and memorabilia of the late singer are compiled by his mother, Mary Guibert, and Rolling Stone's David Browne in Jeff Buckley: His Own Voice.
Tamikrest's Tamotaït adds a welcome lyrical side to their brand of Saharan desert rock. The group advocate for both unity and diversity in wonderfully dulcet tones.
Able to write and sing the blues, gospel, folk, rock and alt-country with the same amount of true grit and passion, Lucinda Williams comes out swinging while discussing her explosive new album during these troubled times.
On her new searing album, Good Souls Better Angels, Lucinda Williams rages against the darkness of our era and seeks the strength to get through it.
The songs on Rory Block's Prove It on Me express the strength of female artists despite their circumstances as second class citizens in both the musical world and larger American society.
"Lean on Me" singer-songwriter Bill Withers was the voice of morality in an industry without honor. It's amazing he lasted this long.
Americana's Pokey LaFarge performs music in front of an audience as a way of conquering his personal demons on Rock Bottom.
Bill Withers' Live at Carnegie Hall manages to feel both exceptionally funky and like a new level of grown-up pop music for its time.
As coronavirus spreads throughout the world and many of us hunker down with online media, we offer eight songs that share our feeling of seclusion.
From apocalyptic blues boasts to backwoods chant-alongs, here are 15 songs that encapsulate Tom Waits' incredibly varied career.
Ian Zack's biography gives the often-overlooked Odetta a chance to keeping shining that little light of hers.
In 1972, the Rolling Stones were holed up in a rickety mansion in the South of France, writing an epic love letter to American music. Counterbalance examines the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St and separates the fever from the funk house—now!
Number seven marks the first appearance of a fellow we’ll be seeing a lot of, one Bob Dylan. He’s a poor fool in his prime on the 1966 opus Blonde on Blonde—Counterbalance has a listen.
On Aloha, Son Little ponders the ambivalence of life and love, and decides he could be right. Or he could be wrong. Either way, the music is soulful and comforting.
Son Little finds commonalities across jazz, hip-hop, soul, R&B, and rock. His latest album grew out of a setback, but he created a stronger, simpler, more ruminative set of songs. Here he talks about creativity and obstacles and how they work together.
Hot Tuna is power trio rock at its finest as sonic sparks fly in the band's astonishing seventh decade of performing at rock's most sacred venue.
© 1999-2020 PopMatters.com. All rights reserved.
PopMatters is wholly independent, women-owned and operated.
