Rory Block Blues Walkin' Like A Man A Tribute To Son House (2008)

Walter Trout pays tribute to blues icon Luther Allison on his 23rd solo release Luther's Blues. 12 of the 13 tracks on the CD are associated with Allison except for the Trout original, "When Luther Played the Blues." Trout first met Luther in Switzerland at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1986, which provided the location shot for the CD cover. Trout maintains he had the idea for this album since that first meeting. The songs Trout chose to cover are taken from Allison's albums Songs from the Road, Bad Love, Blue Streak, Reckless, and Soul Fixin' Man. As usual, Trout's guitar dexterity is undisputed, but his top-notch vocal work deserves equal attention, especially on the heart-wrenching tracks "Freedom," and "Pain in the Streets." In an era where blues tribute albums are abundant, and in some cases the tribute is anything but, Luther's Blues rises to the top with the best of them.

In Life, his 2010 autobiography, Keith Richards makes clear that boogie-woogie pianist Ian Stewart was the organizing principle in the Rolling Stones, calling the first audition/rehearsal that led to the formation of the band, even though, when the group was offered a recording contract, he was shunted aside as an unnecessary sixth member who didn't look the part. (Amazingly, the self-effacing Stewart agreed to continue to play on their records and serve as their road manager.) Ben Waters pays tribute to "Stu" on this album largely given over to boogie-woogie, and he has enlisted a star-filled set of guests including Stones members Richards, Mick Jagger (who sings and plays harmonica on a cover of Bob Dylan's "Watching the River Flow"), Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, and Ronnie Wood, as well as other notable musicians such as PJ Harvey and Jools Holland…

This double-CD has 24 different groups of fusion musicians (including some from Europe) paying tribute to Weather Report. Despite the personnel and often the instrumentation changing from track to track, there is a unity to the project and many of the bands sound quite a bit like Weather Report, either purposely as part of the tribute or naturally. The programming is somewhat random and the bands bring back the sound, grooves, and spirits of Weather Report rather than necessarily always sticking to their compositions. All in all, this is a heartfelt and very well-played tribute that can also serve as an introduction to a cross-section of some of today's top fusion musicians, many of whom are not household names yet.

An intriguing collection of rare cuts highlighting the sheer wealth of remarkable material that comes to light by digging that bit deeper into the country blues archive.

The son of legendary bluesman Muddy Waters, Mud Morganfield and Fabulous Thunderbird frontman Kim Wilson come together for this tribute release. "For Pops (A tribute To Muddy Waters) represents some of Mud's favorite songs from his father including the iconic "I Just Want To Make Love To You" plus "Blow Wind Blow" and "Just To Be With You"…

Early geniuses of Delta Blues - Robert Johnson, Geeshie Wiley & Elvie Thomas, Son House, Charley Patton and many more have been painstakingly remastered using a mix of analog and digital technology for a hybrid sound that is simultaneously contemporary, immediate but still completely true-to-form.