On Big Money, Super Bowl-sized singer Jon Batiste opts for a surprisingly intimate sound. The just over 32-minute, nine-song set is not nearly as loud as the New Orleans’ jazzman’s eye-popping wardrobe. The stripped-down, mostly acoustic arrangements create a chill vibe. Simplicity somehow only intensifies the songs’ swing and sway.
Batiste pairs lyrics about devotion, values, angels and ecology with music that mixes folk and funk, gospel and the blues. The range is such that Batiste even plays a little fiddle and mandolin, but he shines brightest on two songs featuring his solo piano.
The first is a wonderful duet with Randy Newman, another piano man with New Orleans roots, who in recent years has been…
You need to be logged in to view the rest of the content. Please Log In.
Accomplished Rhode Island-based guitarist 
Most think of the origins of the blues in terms of the Delta acoustic guitar style yet Afro-Romani cornetist, saxophonist, historian, and producer 
Before you even hear a note of Redemption, 
More than 60 years ago, Victoria Spivey heard 
Patrick Sweany has never been a one-lane artist. For over two decades, the Ohio-born, East Nashville–based bluesman has slipped between grooves with the ease of a needle on vinyl, whether it be blues, soul, funk, country, or classic rock. And on Baby, It’s Late, his first self-produced album, he brings all of it home. Sweany’s latest is an analog-drenched blend of everything that makes his music so undeniably his. It’s also a product of his musical village. Pulling players from two of his side projects – the retro-minded Tiger Beats and the groove-heavy Super Felon – Sweany came up with a record that plays like a mixtape of his past lives, all with his usual signature swagger. Being in the groove is Sweany’s recipe for success, and 
Buddy Guy’s Ain’t Done with the Blues will be released on his 89th birthday. If one didn’t know that and listened to this record without any preamble whatsoever, one would think this is a mid-career bluesman in his prime.
In the first 20 years of his recording career, Devon Allman has made one thing very clear. He doesn’t stand still. As an artist and performer, he is always on the move, eager to stretch his boundaries, forever on the lookout for new sources of inspiration and new musicians to collaborate with. That ethos has driven him to continually create and move on. That’s why his discography to date – though it includes a number of solo albums – also shows releases with Honeytribe (with whom he debuted in 2006) and southern rock supergroup Royal Southern Brotherhood as well as with the Allman Betts Band. The resumé is a work in progress, yet one that is already worthy of the musical legacy handed down to him by his late father Gregg Allman…
The opening track on The Boneshakers’ 1996 debut was a roaring, bluesy version of “Cold Sweat.” That rollicking take on the James Brown classic remains one of the song’s finest, and most innovative reworkings. It also laid down the gauntlet, and set a high bar, for the band’s musical concept.
After 50-plus years, you’d expect the genre of psych rock to be played out. There are many examples of cookie-cutter groups relying on the same rusty old toolkits, attempting to be some third-rate Pink Floyd or the Grateful Dead.
One listen to 
He has been the most prolific, diverse, ubiquitous and hardest working musician in the roots rock (along with occasional hard rock from Black Country Communion’s side project) for decades. But Joe Bonamassa isn’t lounging around on the popular multi-artist cruises he organizes, to reflect on his accomplishments.
Looking for some plain, simple honesty? This latest record from Norway-based singer-songwriter will certainly tick the right boxes. It is a collection for our times, capturing musical vignettes on complex subjects, without shrinking away from any of the real issues.
…features a remastered version of the original 1975 mix, a new unearth ‘extended’ stereo remix, plus disc of outtakes and rarities.