Junior+wells

The idea behind Paint It Blue: Songs of the Rolling Stones is such a simple, appealing one that it's a wonder that the record wasn't made before 1997. The Stones never made any secret of their debt to the blues, so it makes sense that their songs would sound good when performed by blues and R&B artists…

This, the second of Kent's Mod Jazz compilations, documents those points during the 1960s (and sometimes the early '70s, or the late '50s) when jazz, blues, and soul music intersected, sometimes throwing in pinches of pop, soundtrack themes, and Latin beats.

This stalwart independent label, headquartered in San Francisco, began in a small Ann Arbor club and grew into one of the most important imprints in blues. Thirty-three tunes ricochet between the potent old-school Chicago stylings of Buddy Guy and Junior Wells's classic "Hoodoo Man Blues" and Big Walter Horton'ss swinging shuffle "Put the Kettle On" to the intriguing pop-folk hybrid of Roy Rogers and Norton Buffalo and the dashing retro-nuevo guitarisms of Nick Curran & the Niteflies to the brawny Texas-schooled sounds of Omar & the Howlers and Smokin' Joe Kubek & Bnois King. The label's Delta blues side is underrepresented, although James Cotton and Elvin Bishop offer two great flavors of cottonland grind.

Seldom equalled and never surpassed, Muddy Waters changed the course of popular music. Beautifully remastered to capture Muddy's intoxicating power, this Rough Guide charts his early career in the Delta and pioneering time in Chicago.
The bonus CD features a group of stellar musicians, who played with Muddy Waters while he changed the face of blues music. Harmonica players James Cotton and Junior Wells, guitarists and singers Jimmy Rogers, Earl Hooker, Walter Horton, Jimmy Oden, Buddy Guy and Otis Rush, all passed through Muddy's band or played on his records. Others were merely influenced by him. But then again, of the blues musicians of the 1950s, there was scarcely anybody who wasn't…

Starting with its 20th anniversary in 1991, every five years brings another double Alligator collection, and 2011 was no exception. While the 35th edition –released in 2006 – logically featured 35 songs, the compilers couldn't quite squeeze 40 onto this 40th anniversary disc, even though owner Bruce Iglauer does admit to fading a few endings off prematurely in order to maximize the list, which hits 38 selections. The trick with these albums is to both pay tribute to the label's storied past while including enough recent acts to connect the dots between the house-rocking music Iglauer built his company on, and the more modern yet still roots-based sounds he's released during the last five years.

You don't have to be a bluesman to be known for your harmonica playing - Stevie Wonder has taken his share of memorable harmonica solos, and the distinctive Toots Thielemans (who is arguably the Stan Getz of the harmonica) has demonstrated that a harmonica player can handle the most sophisticated of jazz. That said, no musical idiom has given listeners more first-class harmonica players than the blues. From the Mississippi Delta and the bayous of Louisiana to Chicago's South Side, the harmonica has long been the blues' most famous wind instrument. Spanning 1950-1999, This Is the Blues Harmonica gives listeners an appealing taste of some of the harmonica soloists (many of them singers) to whom Delmark has had access over the years. At its best, this compilation is excellent - and at its worst, it is at least decent…