Ry Cooder's exceptional Paradise and Lunch takes a popular precept – music as the common denominator across all languages and styles – to extremes few artists have envisioned let alone fulfilled. Considered by many diehards to be the California native's finest hour, the 1974 set unfurls with rarified levels of joyousness, ingenuity, and sophistication. A prime contender for any Desert Island list and an album that repeatedly restores your faith in the inimitable effects experienced upon listening to special performances, Paradise and Lunch is an eternal "musicians' musician" record – an adventurous, ambitious, soulful leap down roads well-traveled and paths less known. Such eclecticism, virtuosity, and ebullience resonate with unmatched verve on our hybrid SACD. Mastered from the original master tapes and strictly limited to 2000 numbered copies, this audiophile reissue boasts dead-quiet surfaces, superb transient response, front-to-back soundstaging, and an organic immediacy that heightens the enjoyment, character, and craft of the arrangements.

This disc by John Mooney stretches his boundaries without compromising his music at all. He adds some New Orleans rhythm & blues/funk to the solid, deep Delta blues foundation on which his music is based. It works yet he doesn't seem quite comfortable with it all yet even though he wrote nine of the 13 songs (some of his strongest songs yet). Of course, he has enlisted some of the finest, such as Dr. John to plink the ivories, and some friendly familiar faces like Jeff Sarli on bass, to assist him in this endeavor. This is more a group-orientated effort and it is excellent in that respect, however, that means Mooney's guitar work is not as prominent in the mix and, thus, it requires more attention by the listener because he has not lost any of his ferocity at all. His guitar playing is some of the most savage and ferocious ever. A big plus on this disc is Mooney's singing because he is sounding more comfortable each time out and he has a voice perfectly matched in passion to the raw and fervid nature of his Delta-based material.

John Mooney is a slide guitarist, working primarily in a traditionalist Delta acoustic style. Originally hailing from Rochester, NY, Mooney learned his craft first hand from country blues legend Son House. Later in his career, he moved to New Orleans, switched to electric guitar and began enlivening his music with Second Line rhythms indigenous to the area. In 1976, Mooney relocated to New Orleans and within a year of his arrival, he landed a contract with Blind Pig. In 1979, he released his debut album, Comin' Your Way.

Blues on the South Side is probably the best album slide guitarist Homesick James ever laid down (originally for Prestige in 1964). The stylistic similarities to his cousin, the great Elmore James, are obvious, but Homesick deviates repeatedly from the form. Tough as nails with a bottleneck, he goes for the jugular on "Goin' Down Swingin'", "Johnny Mae", and "Gotta Move", supported by pianist Lafayette Leake, guitarist Eddie Taylor, and drummer Clifton James.

The 2010 issue of Mississippi Blues by Sonny Landreth on the Fuel 2000 imprint is not a new album, nor is it a representative compilation of his oeuvre. In fact, the set is a complete repackage of the album entitled The Crazy Cajun Recordings originally issued on CD by Great Britain’s Edsel in 1999. The material dates from 1973 and 1977, recorded with the famed Huey P. Meaux (aka the Crazy Cajun) when he wasn’t touring with Clifton Chenier as part of his Red Hot Louisiana Band. These 20 tracks range from Landreth’s Lafayette, LA-styled take on the acoustic Delta blues solo and with a band that included a mandolin player, an electric bassist, and a drummer to his early electric experiments playing a meld of Cajun-flavored soul, rock, and R&B. The electric slide guitar fury evidenced on his own records from the 1980s onward is all but absent here, but the acoustic slide work is particularly plentiful – check his reading of “I Know You Rider,” “Lazy Boy,” and the stomping “Prodigal Son”.

Bluesman John Mooney has a very appealing tone in his slide guitar work, a relatively strong voice and, by varying moods, subject matter and grooves, he put together a particularly strong program for his Bullseye Blues debut. Influenced by both the country blues and country music, Mooney's guitar acts as both a contrasting and a complementary voice to his vocals, sometimes functioning in unison and other times as an equal partner in a musical "conversation." Enjoyable music.

Hard Again is a 1977 Chicago blues album by Muddy Waters. It was recorded by producer Johnny Winter in a rough, bare-bones style. Released on January 10, 1977, Hard Again was Muddy's first album on the Blue Sky label after leaving Chess Records. The sessions for Hard Again were recorded across the space of three days. Producing the session was Johnny Winter and engineering the sessions was Dave Still – who previously engineered Johnny's brother Edgar, Foghat, and Alan Merrill. For the recordings Muddy used his then current touring band of guitarist Bob Margolin, pianist Pinetop Perkins, and drummer Willie "Big Eyes" Smith. Other backing members during the sessions were harmonicist James Cotton, who performed with Muddy at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1960, and bassist Charles Calmeses, who performed with both Johnny Winter and James Cotton in the past.

Blues man Roy Rogers released breakthrough recordings Slidewinder and Blues on the Range in his early days for the Blind Pig label, and returns to their stable of artists with his first studio date in seven years, his latest since 2004, and his twelfth album overall. Like any evolving artist, Rogers has taken into consideration diversifying his sound while not adopting the trendiness that has crept into more commercialized blues. It seems he's taken cues from the great Charlie Musselwhite in modernizing his music with voodoo economics, teaming up with the Delta Rhythm Kings, European contemporary keyboardist Philip Aaberg, and multi-faceted saxophonist George Brooks.

With Under the Spell, Australian guitarist Dave Hole and his veteran backup band manage to lasso in all of the energy from their live concerts, while under the roof of a usually antiseptic recording studio environment. All but three of the 12 tracks were written by Hole and rank among his best work to date. Rocking through "Demolition Man" and delivering a sweet soul-blues ballad with "Don't Say Goodbye," Hole once again expresses his musical diversity with a flair. He manages to remain a true original while still feeding off of his major influences – people like the Rolling Stones, Muddy Waters, the Animals, Howlin' Wolf, and Muddy Waters. "Holding Pattern" rocks with a Stevie Ray Vaughan feel, and Hole's passionate vocals are a real treat on his cover of John Lee Hooker's "Run With Me."

Blending rock, blues, country, and jazz, the godfathers of Southern rock in all its wild, woolly glory. Collection includes: 'The Allman Brothers Band' (1969); 'Idlewild South' (1970); 'At Fillmore East' (1971); 'Eat A Peach' (1972); 'Brothers And Sisters' (1973).

Louisiana slide master Sonny Landreth takes his time between releases – his last studio disc of original material was five years prior to this – but when they arrive, the wait seems justified. For the debut album on his own Landfall records, Landreth calls in marquee name guitarists Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Robben Ford, Eric Johnson, and Vince Gill to bolster the visibility factor. Rather than focusing on guitar duals, Landreth wrote songs that incorporate their styles, and occasional vocals, organically into the material. There are plenty of stunning solos of course, but they are integrated into the tunes that stand up just fine without the six-string fireworks. The album's title is a double entendre as "reach" is a body of water and also describes Landreth inviting his guests to be part of the project.

Beware of the Dog was Hound Dog Taylor's posthumous live album containing performances that are even steamier than his first two studio albums, if such a notion is possible. For lowdown slow blues, it's hard to beat the heartfelt closer "Freddie's Blues," and for surreal moments on wax, it's equally hard to beat the funkhouse-turned-loony bin dementia of "Let's Get Funky" or the hopped up hillbilly fever rendition of "Comin' Around the Mountain".

With a fast, gritty, and furious slide and electric guitar style, Johnny Winter fused the blues to its rock nephew and became a white guitar legend (an albino one, no less, further adding to his stage allure) with his albums and live performances in the 1970s. This set collects some of the best of those performances at shows played between 1969 and 1977, including soaring versions of Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited," the Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash," and Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode," all of which helped set the stage for later guitar slingers like Stevie Ray Vaughan and others.

Digitally remastered two-fer containing a pair of Chess Records albums from the Blues great: 1966's Muddy, Brass And The Blues and 1973's Can't Get No Grindin'. Muddy, Brass And The Blues was a massive undertaking in direction which a couple of years later John Mayall.

A stunning collection of artists and performances celebrate the timeless music of legendary gospel bluesman Blind Willie Johnson. From Derek Trucks’ and Susan Tedeschi’s reverent reading of Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning to Lucinda Williams’ slide guitar-fueled lament in Nobody’s Fault But Mine, from Luther Dickinson’s spirited take on Bye And Bye I’m Going To See The King (with The Rising Star Fife & Drum Band) to Tom Waits’ virtual embodiment of Johnson himself on The Soul Of A Man and John The Revelator, this record is packed with incomparable recordings that speak as much to the greatness of the performers as they do the enduring legacy of Blind Willie Johnson. Featuring Tom Waits, Lucinda Williams, Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi, Cowboy Junkies, The Blind Boys Of Alabama, Sinéad O'Connor, Luther Dickinson, Maria McKee and Rickie Lee Jones.