It is so cool to find an album that was cut by professional musicians that sound like they are having a blast and doing what they were born to do, and a perfect example of this is Smokin’ Joe Kubek and Bnois King’s Fat Man’s Shine Parlor, a killer disc from their recent return to the venerable Blind Pig Records label!

Smokin' Joe Kubek and Bnois King first hooked up in 1987, and their musical association has lasted nearly 20 years. Their albums are dependable affairs that stick close to good old barroom Texas blues, and if they seldom deviate from that, well, that's fine, because they do it as well as anyone this side of Stevie Ray Vaughan. Road Dog's Life is the pair's second album for Delta Groove Music, who they signed with in 2012, and it follows the unplugged Close to the Bone, marking a return to plain old electric Texas blues. That's what you get here, plain and simple, with ten originals and an impressive pair of covers, the Rolling Stones' "Play with Fire" and the Beatles' "Don't Bother Me," both among the albums highlights. The sound, recorded by Prince's long-time engineer David Z, is warm, full, and makes intelligent use of stereo separation to give everything a broad, powerful kick. There's nothing new here – Kubek and King aren't trying to expand Texas blues as much as they simply revel in it – which is a good thing, since they do it so well.

Before Gate was able to rebuild a following stateside, he frequently toured Europe. He recorded the contents of this inexorably swinging set in France in 1973 with all-star backing by keyboardists Milt Buckner and Jay McShann, saxists Arnett Cobb and Hal Singer, among others. Brown indulges his passion for Louis Jordan by ripping through "Ain't That Just like a Woman" and "Ain't Nobody Here but Us Chickens" and exhibits his immaculate fretwork on the torrid title item.

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown was one of the most jazz-oriented of bluesmen, a colorful guitarist and a primitive but swinging fiddler. On this release he includes many instrumental sections in his performances including four all-out boppish jazz jams ("Digging New Ground," "C-Jam Blues," "The Peeper" and the stomping "We're Outta Here"). Brown's vocals, which feature consistently intelligent lyrics ("Better Off With The Blues" is particularly memorable), are part of the music rather than the entire show; he even gives his obscure backup horns chances to solo. The set is a particularly strong example of Gatemouth Brown's music with each of the 11 selections (except perhaps for "I Will Be Your Friend," a poppish vocal duet with Michelle Shocked) being well worth hearing.

A delightfully eclectic program spotlighting nearly all of Gate's musical leanings – blues, jazz, country, even a hearty taste of "Louisiana Zydeco" – and a revealing glimpse of his multi-instrumental abilities: he plays guitar, violin, drums, and piano! There's a tender remake of the Chuck Willis R&B ballad and a funk-tinged update of "Got My Mojo Working," but everything else is from Brown's own pen.

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown's tough-minded approach to the blues, country, Cajun, and jazz insures a minimum of nonsense and a maximum of variety, while his virtuosity on the guitar and fiddle insures the highest standards. Nonetheless, Brown's 1997 album is a landmark for the 73-year-old picker who won a Rhythm & Blues Foundation Pioneer Award. All 13 tunes on Gate Swings find Brown working with his regular road quartet plus a 13-piece horn section, enabling him to prove that Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Lionel Hampton have been as important to his music as any bluesman or Creole fiddler. Gate Swings includes tunes by all three of those big-band leaders as well as compositions by Buddy Johnson, Percy Mayfield, Louis Jordan, and Brown himself, and they all swing with the massive force that only a big horn section can muster. Brown has leaned in this direction before, but Gate Swings is special, because it features the horn arrangements of Wardell Quezergue, an alumnus of the Dave Bartholomew band who arranged many of the best New Orleans R&B hits in the '60s and '70s.

Any cd which starts out with Blues Power featuring Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown on vocals, Eric Clapton on guitar, and Leon Russell playing piano and doing vocals is worth a listen to. Long Way Home continues to impress with every track. Brown demonstrates his musical skills, and careful choice of music. His all star cast includes Clapton, Russell, Ry Cooder, John Loudermilk (who wrote Tobacco Road and does the vocals on the cd) Sonny Landreth and Maria Muldaur. Great tracks besides Blues Power are Don't Think Twice with Maria Muldaur doing vocals with Gatemouth, Mean and Evil with Leon Russell sharing the stage with Gatemouth and of course Tobacco Road. This is a great cd for a blues or rock fan.

If the 10 years these Texas guitarists have spent as a team exploring the world bar by bar has been "research," what they've learned is how to please a crowd. The formula's simple: no-frills songs about women and working for a livin', set to meat-and-potatoes arrangements that leave plenty of room for their guitars to roam. Kubek's six-string snarls the loudest, hitting Albert Collins-style sustains and grinding out beefy chords. King skirts around the fringes with his sweet-toned, jazz-informed fills or works at groove-level, anchoring things with his basic, chopping, R&B-style chording. King's vocals are really his trump card. They're smooth and slinky when he's romancing in "Make It Right" or gravelly as Kubek's fluid guitar when he's a driven man in numbers like "Runnin' Blind." The album ends with the kind of guitar grand finale that sets a crowd on fire just after last call. The tune, "Standing in My Door," lets both six-stringers sting.

Mississippi-born but Texas-based Omar Kent Dykes understands a fundamental fact about the blues. He knows there are only a handful of rhythms and themes in the blues grab bag, and he uses them all over and over again in slightly different guises, which is far from a bad thing. It is the fundamental conservatism of the blues and its limited palette that has kept the form alive long after its colorful offspring (R&B, soul, rock & roll, etc.) flew the roost, taking a large part of the audience with them. But Omar understands all this. He has had a 30-year career playing these rhythms, and he knows how to keep it all simple, direct, and powerful, and how to build new songs out of the fabric of the old songs without destroying their familiarity.

Smokin' Joe Kubek's debut album is a delight. Kubek leads his band through a set of smoking hot Texas and Memphis blues, delivered with passion – they can play this music with precision, but they choose to be looser and more fun than most traditionalists. Kubek's a skillful guitarist and B'Nois King, his vocalist and rhythm guitarist, can play nearly as well and their duels are the high watermark of an already wonderful album.

Smokin' Joe Kubek and Bnois King's albums are dependable affairs that stick close to good old barroom Texas blues. The lyrics won't win any Pulitzer Prizes, and while Kubek is an amazing guitar player with a huge tone, he isn't exactly reinventing the instrument, and likewise King, although he is a distinctive and pleasant vocalist, isn't going to be mistaken for Marvin Gaye anytime soon. Not much has changed on their second release on the Blind Pig label, and Show Me the Money delivers another dose of straight-ahead roadhouse blues. If there are any concessions here, it is that all the songs pull in at a radio-friendly length, and at least one, the infectious "My Heart's in Texas," would fit effortlessly on "new country" play lists. The first two tracks, "I Saw It Coming" and "Burnin' to the Ground," pretty much lead the charge here, and King's easy, subtle singing pairs nicely with Kubek's gutbucket guitar tone, but there are no real surprises waiting in the grass, and certainly nothing that will shake the roots of the music industry – just solid blues-rock. Somebody's gotta do it, and Kubek and King do it so well.

Journeyman blues icon vocalist/guitarist/violinist Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown delivers another solid mix of electric Texas blues, country, and swing on Timeless. At this point in his career, Brown essentially represents all that is "roots" music, which is another way of saying he has nothing to prove and the listener has everything to gain. To these ends, Brown's impassioned wail fills the sky on the slow blues "For Now So Long," he reworks "Unchained Melody" into an atmospheric John Coltrane-inspired piece, and he delivers a funny yet compelling Sun Ra-esque spoken word intro on "The Drifter." Featuring a full complement of horns and a rhythm section, Timeless showcases all that makes Brown a living national treasure.

There is no need for guest musicians when Smokin' Joe Kubek is around, for the explosive guitarist completely fills up the ensembles with distortions worthy of acid rock. Kubek is a fairly well-rounded player who occasionally leaves space and during at least two songs ("All the Love There Is" and "She's It") on this CD creates some surprising tones on his instrument (sounding like a keyboard on the former and playing 1970s-style wah-wah notes during the latter). With B'nois King contributing smooth but emotional vocals and bassist Paul Jenkins and drummer Mark Hays supporting Kubek, this is a tight group that probably puts on a killer live show.

This provided fresh looks at 11 Collins classics, among them such epic numbers as "Don't Lose Your Cool," "Frosty," "Honey Hush" and "Tired Man." There were slow, wailing ballads with blistering solos, electrifying uptempo wailers with a great horn section answering Collins' phrases with their own bleats, and first-rate mastering and production. Guest stars included B.B. King, Branford Marsalis, Kim Wilson and Gary Moore, while Collins injected vitality into numbers he'd already made standards years ago. This set is a wonderful tribute to an incredible guitarist and musician.