Etta James followed her two deeply jazzy mid-'90s albums of torch songs with Love's Been Rough on Me, a flirtation with Nashville writers. On Life, Love & the Blues, she returns to her blues and soul repertoire, enlivening even the hoariest of tunes ("Spoonful," a gender-flopped "Hoochie Coochie Gal") with her growl. The tinges of funk underpinning "Born Under a Bad Sign" are given full room to stretch on a cover of Sly Stone's "If You Want Me to Stay," and James nearly swipes "The Love You Save May Be Your Own," one of Joe Tex's great preaching ballads, from the master.

This two-fer from the Australian Raven label is a part of a series of Delbert McClinton reissues. All of them come with new liner notes, session photos, and bonus tracks. These two albums, from 1980 and 1981, respectively, represent a renaissance for McClinton of sorts. While he never had a fallow period creatively, The Jealous Kind allowed him a renewed commercial viability even if it was short-lived. Both records were issued by the Muscle Shoals Sound imprint of Capitol Records and were produced by Barry Beckett with the Muscle Shoals rhythm section and horns. While the first disc is centered around diversity in its song choices – by everyone from Larry Henley to Bobby Charles to Van Morrison to Al Green to Jerry Williams – and took radical approaches to reinterpreting the material through soul, blues, funk, rock, and country, the latter chose hard-driving Southern-fried funk and R&B and a relatively close-to-the-vest approach in terms of material – most notably covers of "In the Midnight Hour" and Naomi Neville's "Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette)".

Joe Louis Walker is the John Henry of the blues, a guy who works hard and isn't afraid to put his back into his music. Hornet's Nest is the man's tenth studio album since the dawn of the 21st century, and not a few journeyman bluesmen would be very, very happy to come up with a session this strong and diverse with twice the time to prepare. Walker and his band are in tight, ferocious form on Hornet's Nest, with Walker's blazing lead guitar work supported by Reese Wynans' rollicking keyboards, Rob McNelley's able second guitar, Tommy MacDonald's rock-solid bass, and Tom Hambridge's aggressive but tasteful drumming. The song list is eclectic, ranging from the hard-edged rock-leaning sound of the title cut, the psychedelic flourishes of "Not in Kansas Anymore," and the soulful, horn-fortified strut of "All I Wanted to Do" to the gospel-influenced moods of "Keep the Faith" and the down-home slide guitar showcase "I'm Gonna Walk Outside." And Walker's taste in covers is commendable, adding doo wop-style vocals to Jesse Stone's "Don't Let Go" and turning the Rolling Stones' "Ride On, Baby" into a roadhouse rocker whose twin-keyboard attack recalls Bruce Springsteen's E-Street Band.

In this 2003 performance from the Austin City Limits series, New England's Susan Tedeschi demonstrates a range that extends well beyond her blues base. Following the blueprint employed by Bonnie Raitt a few decades earlier, she covers John Prine's "Angel from Montgomery" (a signature tune for Raitt), inserting a snippet from the Grateful Dead's "Sugaree." The piano balladry of her "Wrapped in the Arms of Another" could fit just fine on a Raitt album. The set also finds her sampling from the songbooks of Sly Stone ("You Can Make It If You Try"), Bob Dylan ("Don't Think Twice, It's All Right"), and Stevie Wonder ("Love's in Need of Love Today"), in addition to the more straightforward blues of Koko Taylor ("Voodoo Woman"). Though Tedeschi's stinging lead guitar provides the focus, she receives strong support from a band featuring the interplay of electric pianist Jason Crosby (who doubles on violin) and William Green on Hammond B-3 organ. Highlights include a tribute to jam-band inspiration Col. Bruce Hampton on "Hampmotized" and the simmering "Wait for Me," with its echoes of Aretha Franklin.