Electric Mud (Audio CD)

Electric Mud (Audio CD)
By Muddy Waters

Buy new: $9.52
67 used and new from $3.72
Customer Rating:

Customer tags: muddy waters(6), psychedelic(6), acid rock(4), electric blues guitar(3), funk(3), blues(3), erick labson remasters, chicago blues, cheap cd, charles stepney, traditional blues, shadow classics

Review & Description

Limited Edition Japanese pressing of this album comes housed in a miniature LP sleeve. 2007.This is the infamous "somebody-put-something-in-the-Waters" LP from 1968. A relative hit for Chess, it features the exalted bluesman bellowing over psychedelicized arrangements that owe more to Steppenwolf than Willie Dixon. Waters himself complained that the drums were too busy and the lead guitar sounded like a cat's meow. Not a bad critique. --Steven Stolder Read more

Find out More for the best price at Amazon

Attack and Release (Audio CD)

Attack and Release (Audio CD)
By The Black Keys

Buy new: $11.13
46 used and new from $7.98
Customer Rating:

Customer tags: the black keys(44), blues rock(40), rock(20), bluesrock(16), blues(14), indie rock(14), guitar(11), best album ever(7), awesome(7), garage punk(5), awesome cd(3), alternative rock(2)

Review & Description

Limited Edition pressing of their 2008 album comes in double fold digipak packaging. On Attack and Release, Danger Mouse is more creative co- conspirator than traditional figure behind the boards. He doesn’t radically alter the duo ’s sound so much as coax out more of its inherent soulfulness, groove and bittersweet emotion. Two versions of 'Remember When' illustrate how the duo can swing easily from smoldering ballad to thrashing rocker. 'I’ m more pleased with the sound of this record than any one we’v e ever made,' says Carney, and Auerbach concurs: 'We never let it all go l ike we did for this one, anything was game. It was just fun to make, and that’s why I t hink it’s so successful.' V2.Of all the two-piece rock bands (Dresden Dolls, The White Stripes, The Kills, John & Jehn) out there making a royal racket, The Black Keys are by far the least affected by the last three decades of popular music, and evolution. Even more so than Jack & Meg. Which makes you check the album credits twice and then seek a second opinion--produced by celebrated uber-producer, superstar DJ and one half of Gnarls Barkley, the ubiquitous and really quite modern Danger Mouse?! No, your eyes do not deceive you, but thankfully neither do your ears. He may have brought a discipline and expensive sheen to Attack & Release, the riffing is buffed up real good, but this is essentially the same band that continues to live less of a life and more a Jimi Hendrix Experience. If there is a change it's that for the first time their foot is teased off the accelerator, with "Lies", "Remember When (Side A)" and "Oceans & Streams" loosening their shoulders and playing a more chilled brand of dusty sunset southern blues, adding in keys and new layers of texture (is that really a flute on "Same Old Thing"?!). There's still plenty of chance, on the massive Zeppelin-esque "Strange Times" and "Remember When (Side B)" for instance, to leave a boot mark though. More release than attack this time around, but the key still fits. --James Berry Read more

Find out More for the best price at Amazon

I've Got My Own Hell to Raise (Audio CD)

I've Got My Own Hell to Raise (Audio CD)
By Bettye LaVette

Buy new: $11.60
49 used and new from $3.95
Customer Rating:

Customer tags: bettye lavette(13), blues(8), soul sister(4), gift idea(3), soul(2), funk(2), music(2), feel the pain, bettey, album, blues mama, awesome lady rockin out

Review & Description

With one eye on the intimate concept albums Sinatra invented at mid-'50s Capitol, and the other on the gritty yet sophisticated soul records produced at Atlantic in the '60s, this release offers ten songs that tell the story of Bettye LaVette. Recording stints at Motown, Atlantic, Epic, and a host of smaller labels left her with dreams to burn, and she pours every moment of hope and heartbreak from her 44 years in music into her tough-minded new collection. Choosing only songs written by female artists, she spins the tale of a woman in a world where men make the choices. For every moment of fear and loss, there's an answering moment of triumph and defiance. The songs are from such artists as Sinead O'Connor, Lucinda Williams, Joan Armatrading, Rosanne Cash, Dolly Parton, Aimee Mann, and more.After four decades toiling in the record business with little more than a fervent cult following to show for it, Bettye LaVette can seem like soul music's equivalent of Roy Hobbs, protagonist of the bittersweet baseball fable The Natural. Whether this riveting collection of ten covers by an eclectic range of contemporary female singer/songwriters will change the husky-throated Detroit native's fortunes seems irrelevant: Its spare, dusky groove and intensely emotional, in-the-moment performances seem utterly disconnected from concerns as trivial as fame and fashion. A forceful, timely reminder that soul thrives on the singer and not the song, LaVette doesn't so much cover these songs as reinvent them from the inside out, be it the chilling, a capella read of Sinead O'Connor's "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" that opens the album, a gritty take of Lucinda Williams' "Joy" where the singer burns with a fire that might make Tina Turner envious or her recasting Dolly Parton's "Little Sparrow" as bluesy omen and "How Am I Different" by Aimee Mann as inviting, r&b shuffle. In a musical era where soulful authenticity and emotional resonance are too often virtual, this album is a delicious dose of the Real Deal. -- Jerry McCulley Read more

Find out More for the best price at Amazon

Just Between Us (Audio CD)

Just Between Us (Audio CD)
By Ray Charles

13 used and new from $4.25
Customer Rating:

Customer tags: soul(3), lou rawls(2), blues(2), b b king(2), 1980s, 80s blues, 80s, ray charles, 80s pop, milt jackson

Find out More for the best price at Amazon

Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature: A Vernacular Theory (Paperback)

Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature: A Vernacular Theory (Paperback)
By Houston A. Baker

Buy new: $25.00
32 used and new from $9.89

First tagged by Elizabeth Frye
Customer tags: african-american studies(2), american literature, criticism, blues, african american

Review & Description

Relating the blues to American social and literary history and to Afro-American expressive culture, Houston A. Baker, Jr., offers the basis for a broader study of American culture at its "vernacular" level. He shows how the "blues voice" and its economic undertones are both central to the American narrative and characteristic of the Afro-American way of telling it.

Read more

Find out More for the best price at Amazon

Jimmie Vaughan-Plays Blues, Ballads & Favorites (Audio CD)

Jimmie Vaughan-Plays Blues, Ballads & Favorites (Audio CD)
By Jimmie Vaughan

Buy new: $13.68
37 used and new from $9.69
Customer Rating:

Customer tags: blues(17), jimmie vaughan(12), texas blues(10), blues rock(5), jazz blues(3), country blues(2), 60 s sound, pre-60s, jazz, fender stratocaster, big brother always knows best, rockin blues

Review & Description

The blues-rock master's first album in nine years! Blues, Ballads and Favorites is blues-rock pioneer Jimmie Vaughan's tribute to the music that inspired him, with covers of songs by Little Richard, Jimmy Reed, Roy Milton, Roscoe Gordon and others. The album was recorded in Austin, Texas, and features legendary blues singer Lou Ann Barton on two tracks. Other highlights include a brand-new instrumental, "Comin' & Goin'," and a version of Willie Nelson's "Funny How Time Slips Away" featuring vocals by Bill Willis, the famed Hammond organ player who recorded with James Brown and Bill Doggett. Vaughan founded the iconic Fabulous Thunderbirds in 1974, and they became famous for the high-octane blues-rock sound that earned them critical acclaim in the '70s and platinum-selling albums in the '80s. In 1990, Vaughan recorded a duets album, Family Style, with his brother, Stevie Ray Vaughan, shortly before the latter's untimely death, and then went on to a successful solo career. Read more

Find out More for the best price at Amazon

Plays More Blues, Ballads & Favorites (Audio CD)

Plays More Blues, Ballads & Favorites (Audio CD)
By Jimmie Vaughan

Buy new: $11.68
36 used and new from $8.25
Customer Rating:

First tagged by
Customer tags: blues, jimmie vaughan

Review & Description

Plays More Blues, Ballads and Favorites is blues-rock pioneer Jimmie Vaughan s second helping of covers of the roots music that inspired him, with versions of songs by Ray Charles, Hank Williams Sr., Lloyd Price, Jimmy Reed, and others. The album was recorded in Austin, Texas, and features legendary blues singer Lou Ann Barton joining him once again, on three tracks. Vaughan founded the iconic Fabulous Thunderbirds in 1974,and they became famous for the high-octane blues-rock sound that earned them critical acclaim in the '70s and platinum albums in the '80s. In 1990, Vaughan recorded a duets album, Family Style, with his brother, Stevie Ray Vaughan, shortly before the latter's untimely death, and then went on to a successful solo career. Read more

Find out More for the best price at Amazon