Talk The Walk

This 52-disc (no, that is not a typo) comp, ABC of the Blues: The Ultimate Collection from the Delta to the Big Cities, may just indeed live up to its name. There are 98 artists represented , performing 1,040 tracks. The music begins at the beginning (though the set is not sequenced chronologically) with Charlie Patton, Son House, and Robert Johnson, and moves all the way through the vintage Chicago years of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, with stops along the way in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, New York, and all points in between. Certainly, some of these artists are considered more rhythm & blues than purely blues artists: the inclusion of music by Johnny Otis, Wynonie Harris, Bo Diddley, and others makes that clear…

Sharing the Covers is a clever title from a clever band - a band clever enough to not allow themselves to succumb to their wittiness anywhere on this light and lively collection of other people's songs. Casting their net wide, the quartet cover contemporaries and classics, modern and vintage tunes in equal measure, their choices continually telegraphing their good taste. Happily, their execution demonstrates their skill. Although Chatham County Line doesn't reinterpret many of the songs - even a nimble reading of the Ventures' "Walk-Don't Run" doesn't turn the tune inside-out - they nevertheless imprint these largely familiar tunes with their personality. Witness their version of Tom Petty's "You Don't Know How It Feels"…