Moves 3 to 10

Child Is Father to the Man is keyboard player/singer/arranger Al Kooper's finest work, an album on which he moves the folk-blues-rock amalgamation of the Blues Project into even wider pastures, taking in classical and jazz elements (including strings and horns), all without losing the pop essence that makes the hybrid work. This is one of the great albums of the eclectic post-Sgt. Pepper era of the late '60s, a time when you could borrow styles from Greenwich Village contemporary folk to San Francisco acid rock and mix them into what seemed to have the potential to become a new American musical form. It's Kooper's bluesy songs, such as "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know" and "I Can't Quit Her," and his singing that are the primary focus, but the album is an aural delight; listen to the way the bass guitar interacts with the horns on "My Days Are Numbered" or the charming arrangement and Steve Katz's vocal on Tim Buckley's "Morning Glory." Then Kooper sings Harry Nilsson's "Without Her" over a delicate, jazzy backing with flügelhorn/alto saxophone interplay by Randy Brecker and Fred Lipsius.

Recent years brought about for Julia Holter an existential focus on human connection, amid the staggering change that came with the death of loved ones (including her young nephew, to whom the album is dedicated) and the birth of her daughter. On Something in the Room She Moves, Holter vividly processes the complexity, gravity, and awe of this confluence of experience. She calls the music “sensual,” “flowing,” and “nocturnal”–a testament to how love, with all of its challenges, “reroutes neural pathways.” The cover art by Holter’s childhood friend, artist Christina Quarles, highlights the multiplicity of intimate connection: are the figures embracing or in battle?

Bob Seger recorded the bulk of Night Moves before Live Bullet brought him his first genuine success, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that it's similar in spirit to the introspective Beautiful Loser, even if it rocks harder and longer. Throughout much of the album, he's coming to grips with being on the other side of 30 and still rocking…

One of the best recordings in Chess Records' 50th Anniverary series is the first of two bookend Muddy Waters collections, His Best 1947-55. Documenting Waters's most creatively and commercially successful years at Aristocrat/Chess, this collection begins with his formative years and ends with Waters at his peak. So you're in for a lot of terrific bottleneck slide guitar work as well as electric Chicago blues; what's to criticize? Superb remasterings of "I Can't Be Satisfied", "Rollin' and Tumblin'," "I'm Ready", and "Mannish Boy" are simply beyond reproach. With simple bass accompaniment from Ernest "Big" Crawford, Waters's bottleneck tracks are spare, haunting and, quite frankly, perfect country blues. And listening to Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon, and Jimmy Rogers piece together (and perfect very quickly) the classic Chicago sound is pure blues epiphany. At the very least, this collection shows you why Waters's rollicking stop-time classics like "Mannish Boy" and "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man" have sparked endless imitations over the years–and why nobody has played them better since.