Hak Mau (1991) Black Cat

This excellent companion volume to Founder of the Delta Blues pulls together 23 more Patton tracks (including some alternate takes that were for years thought to be lost) to give a much more complete look at this amazing artist. It's interesting here to compare the tracks from his final session to his halcyon output from 1929. Highlights include "Mean Black Cat Blues," Patton's adaption of "Sitting on Top of the World" ("Some Summer Day") and both parts of "Prayer of Death," originally issued under the non de plume of "Elder J.J. Hadley." The sound on this collection is vastly superior, from a noise-reduction standpoint, to its companion volume.

"Ice Man" or not, Albert was on fire the night of his taping on October 28, 1991. "You just can’t believe how long it took me to get on this show!" he declared, and wasted no time proving why it was long overdue. His performance was a wild ride, and the ACL stage proved too small for his antics, so with his long guitar chord in tow he took off into the audience during his ten-minute-plus finale of "Frosty." He was first and foremost an entertainer, but nonetheless belongs up front in the pantheon of great blues guitarists. He awed at least two generations of young pickers, not the least of whom including Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix, who was quoted as saying back in the 60's, "There’s one cat I'm still trying to get across to people…his name is Albert Collins … he’s good … really good."

Black Cat is the thirteenth studio album by the Italian blues rock singer-songwriter Zucchero Fornaciari, released on 29 April 2016. It's his first full-length studio album in six years, after Chocabeck in 2010, given that La Sesión Cubana (2012) was a mix of unreleased, previously released and cover songs. The album is marked by a music which goes back to soul & blues roots and sound of the famous Oro Incenso & Birra (1989). According to Zucchero, the album does not have the meaning of Western prejudice of Black cat, yet Afro-American for "figure of speech, a greeting, a symbol of auspice". As well there's a component of anarchism toward the "market rules". It is his "darkest album and rough ever in terms of sonority".

Beck, Bogert & Appice is the eponymous debut album by the 1970s band Beck, Bogert & Appice. They were a supergroup and power trio, with the line up of guitarist Jeff Beck (who had already been a member of The Yardbirds and The Jeff Beck Group), bassist Tim Bogert, and drummer Carmine Appice (both formerly members of Vanilla Fudge and Cactus). The album had solid sales in 1973. One of the most notable tracks is Beck's version of the famous song of Stevie Wonder's and his creation: "Superstition". This was the band's only studio album, as Beck left the band without warning during the recording of their second album, forcing a sudden dissolution in 1974.

London’s Black Cat Bones were one of those bands from the late '60s that served as an incubator for its various members’ later rock incarnations, in this case the bands Free, Foghat, and Bad Company, all of whom drew members from Black Cat Bones. As an intact band, they only released a single album, Barbed Wire Sandwich, on Decca Records in 1969, and then splintered into the future. The album itself is a collection of rather generic period British blues pieces, a bit reminiscent of Cream in sound, although that doesn’t hinder cuts like “Chauffer” and the best track here, “Please Tell Me Baby,” from taking off into some interesting territory.