Red Dawn Poledouris

Amazingly, many of the recordings guitarist Tampa Red made for RCA Victor and Bluebird in the '40s and early '50s never saw reissue until this 2015 double-disc by Ace. As John Broven points out in his rightly evangelical liner notes for Dynamite! The Unsung King of the Blues, CD-era reissues of Tampa Red usually began at the beginning, which for the guitarist meant 1934, and petered out by the late '40s, which is when Tampa Red eased away from hokum and into earthy guitar-and-piano blues that had substantial influence on the electric blues of the '50s. On Dynamite! The Unsung King of the Blues, the interaction between Tampa Red and his pianists Big Maceo Merriweather and, later, Maceo's protégé Little Johnnie Jones certainly points the way to the classic sound of Chicago blues - particularly when it's paired with a big, swinging drumbeat - and the bluesman's repertoire was also cherry-picked by B.B. King…

Amazingly, many of the recordings guitarist Tampa Red made for RCA Victor and Bluebird in the '40s and early '50s never saw reissue until this 2015 double-disc by Ace. As John Broven points out in his rightly evangelical liner notes for Dynamite! The Unsung King of the Blues, CD-era reissues of Tampa Red usually began at the beginning, which for the guitarist meant 1934, and petered out by the late '40s, which is when Tampa Red eased away from hokum and into earthy guitar-and-piano blues that had substantial influence on the electric blues of the '50s. On Dynamite! The Unsung King of the Blues, the interaction between Tampa Red and his pianists Big Maceo Merriweather and, later, Maceo's protégé Little Johnnie Jones certainly points the way to the classic sound of Chicago blues - particularly when it's paired with a big, swinging drumbeat - and the bluesman's repertoire was also cherry-picked by B.B. King…

"Raw" is an overused and sometimes misapplied term of admiration, especially in the realm of the blues, where it is all too often used as a euphemism for "incompetent and off-key." In the case of Louisiana Red's Back to the Black Bayou, however, it's the only apt descriptor, and it's fully justified as a term of praise: his sound is ragged-edged and fiery, though its center is utterly solid and his delivery is unfailingly powerful. Having lived in Germany since the early '80s, he went to neighboring Norway to record this album with producer and guitarist Little Victor, and even if the program leans heavily toward old and familiar material…

Inspired by Charlie Parker and then Jackie McLean, the widely experienced, Detroit-born altoist Sonny Red, nee Sylvester Kyner (1932-1980) was an archetypal Motor City bopper, who, like many of his confreres there, also absorbed the blues-drenched lines of pianist Bud Powell. Forthright, direct, unpretentious, a skilled soloist with a strong feeling for the blues, he played and recorded with some of the finest jazzmen around. The presence here of such luminous talents as, most notably, pianist Barry Harris, along with fellow pianist Tommy Flanagan, trumpeter Blue Mitchell, saxophonists Clifford Jordan and Yusef Lateef, and guitarist Grant Green left no doubt about his stature among them…

Amongst one of the true obscurities in the world of progressive rock has to be from this UK band simply titled Red that went against the grain in the early 80s. Instead of riding the new wave of neo-prog that was emerging with bands like Twelfth Night, IQ or Marillion, Red was defiantly into the jazz-fusion sounds of the 70s however they were equally intrigued with a heavy rock bombast rarely heard in this style of music. The band seems to have formed in the early 80s and spent the year 1982 recording this one and only self-titled album but had an understandably difficult time finding a record contract due to the changing times and the band's anachronistic stylistic approach that was a good six to seven years too late…