Jay Hook

While Jealous is propelled by the scarily spare stomp of Hook's guitar, it has few standout moments. Instead, it is a consistent record, with few highs or lows - it's a standard contemporary blues album, without many peaks or valleys. Jealous may be a grittier record than its successor, The Healer, but it tends to fade into the background, making it one of his more undistinguished albums.

John Lee Hooker - That's My Story & House Of The Blues (1959-1960) {Soul Jam Records 600826 rel 2013}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 407 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 182 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 54 Mb | 5% repair rar | 24bit remastered
© 1959-60, 2013 Riverside / Soul Jam Records | 600826
Blues / Electric Blues / Delta Blues / Acoustic Blues / Detroit Blues / Blues Revival

Although Orrin Keepnews' Riverside Records was primarily a jazz label, the company dabbled in blues in the 1960s – and one of the bluesmen who recorded for Riverside was John Lee Hooker. Recorded in 1960, this Keepnews-produced session came at a time when Hooker was signed to Vee-Jay. The last thing Keepnews wanted to do was emulate Hooker's electric-oriented, very amplified Vee-Jay output, which fared well among rock and R&B audiences. Keepnews had an acoustic country blues vision for the bluesman, and That's My Story favors a raw, stripped-down, bare-bones approach – no electric guitar, no distortion, no singles aimed at rock & rollers.

Peppy Castro ! Considered to be one of the early pioneers of the Psychedelic Garage band rock era has done it all. He is a successful seasoned professional with great variety in his music! His fame and 1st hit record began at the age of 17 as one of the founding fathers of the legendary rock group," The Blues Magoos”. His rock and roll status led him to a starring role in the original Broadway Production of Hair. His songs have been recorded by the likes of Diana Ross, Kiss and Cher, among others. He is also Emmy nominated and an award-winning playwright and multi-instrumentalist, having penned and or performed hundreds of well-known jingles for decades. Budweiser, Chevy, Bounty, Nestlé’s Crunch, Kodak, etc. The list is endless. His potent vocals have appeared on numerous platinum records for well known recording artists.

An adult contemporary pop super duo, Airplay was a one-off project featuring the combined talents of noted session players/producers David Foster and Jay Graydon. They released a sole 1980 album, Airplay, which showcased their laid-back brand of West Coast pop/rock in the vein of Toto and Chicago. Guitarist Jay Graydon and keyboardist David Foster were both already West Coast studio pros with deep credits by the time they recorded their polished 1980 album Airplay. Prior to this, they worked with an impressive array of artists from across the pop and R&B spectrum, including Boz Scaggs, Barbra Streisand, George Harrison, Michael Jackson, and others. Graydon famously beat out both Larry Carlton and Robben Ford to play the guitar solo on Steely Dan's 1977 hit "Peg." They brought all this experience to bear on Airplay's 1980 debut, bringing on board vocalist Tommy Funderburk, drummer Jeff Porcaro, bassist David Hungate, and other longtime studio associates.

Black Radio 2 is the sixth studio album by American jazz pianist and R&B producer Robert Glasper (and the second with his Robert Glasper Experiment band), released on October 29, 2013 by Blue Note Records. It is the follow-up to the Grammy Award winner Black Radio released in 2012. and won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional R&B Performance for the album cut "Jesus Children of America" featuring Lalah Hathaway and Malcolm-Jamal Warner in 2015.

Winding through the literally hundreds of titles in John Lee Hooker's catalog is a daunting task for even the most seasoned and learned blues connoisseur. This is especially true when considering Hooker recorded under more than a dozen aliases for as many labels during the late '40s, '50s, and early '60s. I'm John Lee Hooker was first issued in 1959 during his tenure with Vee Jay and is "the Hook" in his element as well as prime. Although many of these titles were initially cut for Los Angeles-based Modern Records in the early '50s, the recordings heard here are said to best reflect Hooker's often-emulated straight-ahead primitive Detroit and Chicago blues styles. The sessions comprising the original 12-track album – as well as the four bonus tracks on the 1998 Charly CD reissue – are taken from six sessions spread over the course of four years (1955-1959). Hooker works both solo – accompanied only by his own percussive guitar and the solid backbeat of his foot rhythmically pulsating against plywood – as well as in several different small-combo settings.

Smokey-voiced chanteuse Madeleine Peyroux's third CD is a lovely collection of after-hours ruminations and should confirm her rise to fame. Credit producer Larry Klein for doing a bang-up job with the album's sound: the elegant, pared-down arrangements are all brushed drums, acoustic guitars, and cool organ licks. But of course it's Peyroux's voice that brings it all home–preferably one where the shades are drawn, embers are smoldering in the fireplace, and the white wine is kept dry. Two-thirds of the songs are well-chosen covers, including a duet with k.d. lang on Joni Mitchell's "River"; a relaxed version of Fred Neil's "Everybody's Talkin'," from Midnight Cowboy; a delicately lilting samba take on Leonard Cohen and Anjani Thomas's title track; Serge Gainsbourg's "La Javanaise," performed in the original French; and Charlie Chaplin's "Smile," from Modern Times. The four originals, all coauthored by Peyroux, easily keep up with such august company, especially "I'm All Right"–written with Klein and Walter Becker, it captures the easy sophistication of Becker's regular band, Steely Dan. Fans of Norah Jones (whose collaborator Jesse Harris cowrote three of the songs) should gobble up this album, but Peyroux is no mere imitator: She's her own, very real thing.