Broke Samm Henshaw

When most people think about Nigerian music, the first thing that comes to mind is Lagos, the country's main commercial center, the glittering megacity that spawned Yoruba-speaking music luminaries such as Fela Kuti, King Sunny Ade, Sir Shina Peters and Wizkid. But Nigeria is a country of rich diversity, especially in its music: From the Igbo highlife and rock bands of east-central region, to the deep Edo roots rhythms from the midwest, to the keening, ornamented Fulani melodies of the north. But one region whose music has remained largely under-explored is the south eastern land of the Efik and Ibibio ethnic groups in Cross River and Akwa Ibom State, the region colloquially referred to as "Calabar." A cradle of culture, this region was one of the earliest outposts of Nigerian popular music. Its primordial rhythms traveled across the Atlantic during the slave trade to provide the part of the foundation for Afro-Cuban grooves that would go on to influence the development of jazz, rock & roll, R&B and funk.

Bachman-Turner Overdrive's Four Wheel Drive album is most often overlooked, mainly because all of the attention was focused on the singable "na na na naa"'s of one of B.T.O.'s biggest hits in "Hey You." But the rest of the album is made up of the band's lunch-pail rock & roll sound, combining ample amounts of factory-made blues to street-dirty guitar rock. Although it can't really hold a candle to Not Fragile, B.T.O.'s best album, there's still a fair amount of well-played radio rock to hold Four Wheel Drive up.

The elusive Chicago harpist's one and only full-length album, originally issued on Steve Wisner's short-lived Mr. Blues logo and later picked up by Rooster Blues (but not available on CD as yet). Cut in 1975, this set shows that Charles never left the 1950s stylistically – backed by a nails-tough combo, he pays tribute to both Sonny Boys and his ex-boss Jimmy Rogers while betraying more than a hint of Little Walter influence.