Louisiana journeyman swamp rocker Tab Benoit has been churning out an album a year since at least 2002, and between them he stays on the road playing every festival, club, and bar that'll have him. It would seem inevitable that the quality of these studio recordings would decline. But, at least as of 2007's Power of the Pontchartrain, that isn't the case. If anything, this might be the best of a very good lot, as Benoit again teams with Louisiana's Le Roux group (who once backed legend Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and helped on Benoit's previous release) for another 52-minute wade through muggy yet taut bayou blues. Part of the reason Benoit's recent albums are so strong is that he doesn't insist on playing original material, instead cherry-picking nuggets rearranged to suit his approach. This works particularly well here since he unearths terrific, often obscure material from writers such as Julie Miller (two tracks), David Egan (two others), and even Stephen Stills (a not entirely necessary "For What It's Worth").

Homesick for the Road provides a showcase for three fine blues singer/guitarists. The recording is clean and crisp, as is typical of the Telarc label, and the music cooks from start to finish. This disc provides an excellent introduction to each performer, with ample opportunities for each to shine. Debbie Davies brings to mind Bonnie Raitt, with her appealing vocal timbre and bluesy delivery. The youthful Benoit sings with an authority beyond his 31 years, making Screamin' Jay Hawkins' classic "I Put a Spell on You" his own. Kenny Neal has the scruffy, soulful delivery of a man who knows what the blues are all about. His "I've Been Mistreated" sounds like a late '60s slice of Muscle Shoals soul. All three of the co-leaders are excellent guitarists, and the band is solid and tight. Homesick for the Road rolls down the car window for an enticing look at three relatively young performers carrying the blues torch into the future.

Tab Benoit's latest release on Telarc, Fever for the Bayou, continues in what has become Benoit's signature territory, a funky, ragged blend of Louisiana swamp blues and East Texas guitar, with hints of funk, soul, and country thrown in to give the gumbo just the right spice. If it sounds like a formula, well, Benoit's jagged guitar playing and increasingly soulful vocals make it clear that this is the music he loves, so it hardly matters. He touches a lot of bases here, including an eerie approximation of Elmore James' slide sound on a cover of James' "I Can't Hold Out" (which also features some cool tenor sax work from Jimmy Carpenter), then conjures Buddy Guy on Guy's "I Smell a Rat," fires up on the old Slim Harpo chestnut "Got Love if You Want It," and tears through a wonderfully swampy take on Levon Helm's "Blues So Bad" before ending things with an acoustic version of Clarence Williams' "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It" (made famous by another Williams, Hank Williams Sr.).

Dr. John has recorded many great albums, but it's difficult to argue with such a perfect distillation of his catchy, grooving, slapdash pop work as this Rhino set. Coming out of the R&B studio subculture of New Orleans, the former Mac Rebennack possessed songwriting smarts and reams of recording expertise, each of which had reached their peak by the early '70s. Focused squarely on that prime era, 1970 through 1974, the collection begins with his only Top Ten hit, 1973's irrepressibly fatalistic "Right Place, Wrong Time." Two others come from his best album (1973's In the Right Place), the jaunty "Such a Night" and "Qualified." 1972's Dr. John's Gumbo also rates three tracks: the New Orleans classics "Iko Iko" and "Tipitina," plus "Junko Partner." The compilers were also wise to choose three songs from Gris-Gris, his unjustly neglected psychedelic debut, including "Mama Roux" and "I Walk on Guilded Splinters" (but unfortunately, not the glorious "Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya"). A version of Jimmy Liggins' jump-blues classic "Honeydripper," from 1981's Dr. John Plays Mac Rebennack, spotlights his sparkling boogie-woogie piano, and the set closes with a pair of standards from his latter-day Warner Bros. years (one of which is the unofficial Mardi Gras theme "Goin' Back to New Orleans"). Whether it's for a first listen or the perfect road-trip disc, The Very Best of Dr. John has all of the New Orleans master's best recordings in one spot.

Austin-based pianist and singer Marcia Ball began her solo career in earnest with the 1984 album Soulful Dress, and 30 years later, she's still pounding out the blues and boogie on The Tattooed Lady and the Alligator Man. The biggest challenge of a career that's been chugging along for more than three decades is keeping things fresh, and while The Tattooed Lady doesn't blaze many new trails, the album proves Ball's mojo is still working as a songwriter and a piano player, and she clearly hasn't run out of things to say.

These are Landreth's earliest known recordings, half of them made in a single afternoon 1973 when he was just 22 years old, the other half recorded in 1977. They display Landreth in the wine of his youth, looking outward for inspiration, sounding more generally Southern than uniquely Louisianan. If you are seeking an album of Louisiana music, I suggest you look elsewhere. But if it is the long-lost first album of an acknowledged slide guitar king you seek, perhaps the finest of his generation, look no further. It is in your hands.

One of America's best known, most beloved roots artists, releases a career-defining album produced by Steve Berlin of Los Lobos. Marcia is simply on fire throughout 'Shine Bright', with a rollicking array of piano-fueled roadhouse romps seasoned by her incomparably soulful balladry. Tracks include nine new Marcia originals, plus brilliant takes on the music of Ray Charles, Ernie K-Doe and Jesse Winchester. Producer/saxophonist Berlin guests on five tracks. "Rollicking, playful, good-time blues and intimate, reflective balladry…her songs ring with emotional depth."

Winter Time Blues collects some of Lightnin' Slim's later singles for the Excello label, and while it might be hard to believe, these tracks sound positively lush when placed next to his earlier sides. Not that anything here is too fancy, but these songs at least have recorded basslines (the early singles were just Slim on electric guitar and vocals, accompanied by a drummer and a harmonica player, usually Lazy Lester) and the occasional added wash of an organ for texture. Truthfully, part of Slim's appeal is his nerve-bare starkness, and these later tracks show less of that, although the chilling bayou voodoo of "I'm Evil," included here, makes it one of his most powerful songs.

Kenny Neal is such a terrific singer that he can make any kind of blues sound good. On Hoodoo Moon, Neal does the Delta blues justice on a version of Elmore James's "It Hurts Me Too," and does a fine job on the Chicago blues with "I'm a Blues Man." He even pulls off some James Brown funk on "Just One Step." Nonetheless, Neal makes his most valuable contributions when he allows his Louisiana roots to show. On "Don't Fix Our Love," for example, Neal lays his blues-harmonica solo and gravelly vocal over a New Orleans second-line parade rhythm. Lucky Peterson plays the Professor Longhair-like piano part expertly and does the same with the Fats Domino-like piano triplets on "Why Should I Stay." "The Real Thing" and the album's title track boast the slippery shuffle beat of upstate Louisiana's swamp blues.

Marcia Ball, born on the Texas/Louisiana border, has long been a superb performer, delivering her swampy blend of zydeco, blues, and gritty R&B with all the force of a Saturday night locomotive, and through 12 albums, she has never let that energy go. Roadside Attractions, her fifth release for Alligator Records, is no exception – it cooks and rattles and rocks with Ball's typical joyous energy and powerful piano. None of her many fans will be disappointed by this outing, but it is a little different for Ball in one respect – for the first time on one of her albums she has either written or co-written every song on it, and all of them draw on her thousands of hours on the road bringing her infectious brand of swampy boogie to the world.

Tab Benoit's funky, ragged blend of Louisiana swamp blues and East Texas guitar, with hints of funk, soul, and country thrown in to give the gumbo just the right spice, has served him well since he burst on the scene in the early '90s. Since Benoit hasn't essentially changed his sound since, this collection of sides made up largely from his early releases for Houston-based Justice Records (all of Benoit's Justice albums have been reissued by Vanguard Records in recent years) makes an ideal introduction to what this guy is all about, and although Best of the Bayou Blues covers a five-year span from 1992 to 1997, the tracks all fall together in a completely coherent sequence. Opening with the Benoit original "Voodoo on the Bayou" from 1992's Nice & Warm and running through several originals and some interesting covers (including country-funk takes on Hank Williams' "Jambalaya" and Willie Nelson's "Rainy Day Blues"), this set spotlights Benoit's southern Louisiana take on contemporary blues.

Music has been present in Hugh Laurie’s career in some form or another since the days of Fry & Laurie, even working its way into House, the American television series that turned him into an international star in the 2000s. Without House, Laurie would never have been granted the opportunity to record an album like 2011’s Let Them Talk, a full-blooded immersion into American blues via New Orleans, shepherded by acclaimed roots producer Joe Henry and featuring such Big Easy heavy-hitters as Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, and Irma Thomas. To his enormous credit, Laurie never sounds like a dilettante among this group; he holds his own, working his way into the marrow of the songs, playing credible piano throughout the record.