Grandma.2015

1900+ presents the collection of piano works by Tatev Amiryan, an Armenian-American composer. The CD includes following works: Remembrance, Waiting for the Dawn, Armenian Fantasy, Echoes from Childhood, Ortus, Tristesse, Six Pictures. The CD was released in April 2016.

Volume two of Collectables' Ultimate Christmas Album gathers more classic pop and rock holiday tunes, including the Beach Boys' "Little Saint Nick," Gene Autry's "Here Comes Santa Claus," and Diana Ross & the Supremes' "White Christmas." Most of this volume's best-known tracks are by traditional pop crooners, such as Dean Martin's "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!," Bing Crosby's "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas," and Burl Ives' "Holly Jolly Christmas." However, less-familiar tracks like the Echelons' "A Christmas Long Ago (Jingle Jingle)," Augie Rios' "Donde Esta Santa Claus," and Barry Gordon's "Nuttin' for Christmas" prevent the collection from being too predictable. It's not exactly a straightforward holiday-hits compilation, but The Ultimate Christmas Album, Vol. 2 balances enough standards and obscure tunes to make it a unique collection.

You Don't Know My Mind brings back the familiar, friendly growl of modern-day traditionalist Guy Davis, with a pipin' hot baker's dozen of his compositions. Again, on this disc Davis has some extremely able players to help augment his songs and support his vision of them, never overplaying or getting in the way, but providing that constant base of support from which the performer can extend his inspiration. His voice wraps around the lyric and infiltrates it, giving it that heartfelt feeling that makes it his song. This is a consummate performer who loves his music and knows its roots and origins.

Guy Davis has developed into a consummate bluesman. He's listened hard to classic Delta blues and based his style on it, without ever becoming a carbon copy of the greats. Instead they're his jumping-off point into something as individual as "Layla, Layla," where didgeridoo makes an appearance, or the poignant "Joppatowne." Equally adept on guitar, banjo, and harmonica, he's become a force of nature, with the ability to write a song like "I Don't Know" that sounds as if it had come directly from the '30s, alongside covers of Fred McDowell, Big Bill Broonzy, and Sleepy John Estes. The originals and older work mesh perfectly, the sign of a real bluesman. And, of course, he's capable of working the other side of the coin to blues, in gospel, as the closer, "God's Unchanging Hand," clearly shows. This is the tradition reborn and revitalized. Davis' support is wonderfully sympathetic, but he's completely at the center of things, the motivator and mover of this music, and a purveyor of the real blues. His lineage is obvious, and he's the new generation, doing it right and keeping it real.