The Style Council's albums were always weighed down by their far-reaching musical ambitions, which meant that their ideas were usually best heard on their singles. And while this period of Paul Weller's career has been criticized heavily, he wrote several excellent songs during the Style Council, most of which are featured on the fine compilation The Singular Adventures of the Style Council. Not all of the 16 songs are first-rate, as it begins to lose steam toward the end of the band's life, but "My Ever Changing Moods," "You're the Best Thing," "Long Hot Summer," "Shout to the Top!," "A Solid Bond in Your Heart," "Money Go Round," "Walls Come Tumbling Down," and "Speak Like a Child" are terrific, and make the collection worthwhile for fans of the Jam and Weller's solo career, as well as fans of New Romantic new wave and jazzy sophisti-pop.

This is a fine CD of Blues Brothers material, featuring the original Blues Brothers Band and frontman Larry Thurston, performing at Montreux Jazz Festival on July 12, 1989. From the late '80s through the early 90's, the Blues Brothers Band was a popular touring act throughout Europe, with Mr. Thurston doing a fine job on lead vocals. None of the other 90's Blues Brothers frontmen (Dan Ackroyd, John Goodman, Jim Belushi) appear on this CD or in this Line-Up. Not exactly "essential", but a good performance of the tour band during this period of the band's history.

John Lennon would have turned 67 in 2007. If alive, he could well be at the forefront of bringing peace to Darfur, where more than half a million have died from violence and disease during four years of rebel discord. So to create awareness of the ongoing conflict, Amnesty International (with permission from Yoko Ono) has mined Lennon's solo work and rounded up nearly two dozen current artists to reinterpret the music, which spans the ex-Beatle's entire post-band catalog (plus a pair from while the Fab Four were still in business). As with any attempt to cover Beatles-related music, results are hit and miss, with kudos going to Snow Patrol and the Postal Service for capturing the starkness of "Isolation" and "Grow Old with Me," respectively, Mexican rock band Jaguares for uncovering the fear and fury in "Gimme Some Truth," and (surprise!) Christina Aguilera for nailing the complex composition and mood of "Mother." Other highlights include Jackson Browne's piano-led "Oh My Love," Green Day's louder straight take on "Working Class Hero," and the Black Eyed Peas turning "Power to the People" into a gospelly protest. Will resurrecting 30-to-40-year-old messages of peace and love be enough to help end the brutalities in Darfur? That remains to be seen. But selecting John Lennon as the author of those messages will make people listen and, with this collection, may keep them listening.

To call the multitalented Gatemouth Brown, a mainstay of the Texas music scene for over half a century, a bluesman would be inaccurate. Not completely wrong, for Brown's influence on Texas blues has been enormous, but certainly not the whole picture. On Blackjack, Brown (who sings and plays harmonica and a plethora of stringed instruments, from guitar to viola) goes from blues ("Chickenshift") to jazz ("Honey Boy," with a nice drum solo from David Peters) to country ("Dark End of the Hallway") and back again. Not every musician can handle this kind of variety, but Brown makes it work, whether it's the straight-ahead blues of "Here Am I" or "Street Corner" (which has a great harmonica intro), the Cajun-inflected "When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again," or the jazz-blues feel of "Tippin' In." It's easy to see, or rather to hear, why Brown has been so influential: every track on Blackjack is performed with the deft assurance of a master.

Like Stevie Wonder and Allen Toussaint before him–and Prince and D'Angelo afterward–Shuggie Otis was a musical visionary whose early 1970s recordings showed he could do it all, writing, arranging, performing, and producing some of the decade's most satisfying, innovative, and, unfortunately, overlooked music. This reissue of his 1974 Inspiration Information album–a soulful song cycle that took three years to create and was worth every minute–ranges from early drum machine-driven experiments like "Xl-30" and "Aht Uh Mi Hed" (note the Sly Stone spelling influence) to Otis's most stunning pop confection ever, "Strawberry Letter 23." (The latter song, which ended up being a big hit for the Brothers Johnson, is one of four bonus tracks taken from Otis's 1971 Freedom Flight album). Otis, who once turned down an offer to replace Mick Taylor in the Rolling Stones, continues to perform around the Bay Area on his own and with his father, bandleader Johnny Otis. Hopefully, the long-awaited resurrection of this material will help bring him the attention he deserves.

This 15-track compilation gathers the best of Chicago soul singer Tyrone Davis' Columbia recordings from 1976 to 1981. Cut after Davis made his career defining soul hits for Dakar in the '60s, he scored a few more chart toppers including the upbeat, disco era tracks "Give it Up, Turn it Loose, "This I Swear," and "Get On Up (Disco)." But it's the lush, Quiet Storm material represented exceptionally well on "In the Mood," "Lets be Closer Together" and "Close to You," (not the Carpenters tune), that finds the vocalist in his true element. This is a good introductory retrospective from this romantic soul master and the perfect companion to 20 Greatest Hits which focuses on his Dakar material.