Transmissions: Beverly Glenn Copeland

Beverly-Glenn Copeland releases The Ones Ahead - his first new album in 20 years via Transgressive Records. For decades, the Pennsylvania-born, Canada-based singer, songwriter, and composer has illuminated questions of human interconnectedness with his sincere, searching voice and nimble melodicism. His new album, The Ones Ahead - his first collection of new music in nearly two decades - deepens his explorations into the ways all of us must carry each other forward into the next world.

Soul Jazz Records' new Space, Energy and Light is a collection of music by early electronic and synthesizer pioneers (from the 1960s through the 1970s), mid-1970s proto-new age gurus and 1980s guerrilla D-I-Y cassette-era electronic artists, spanning in total over a near 30-year time frame.

The first disc, aptly subtitled The Very Best of Glenn Frey, is chock-full of major chart hits, including the Beverly Hills Copsmash "The Heat Is On," the gritty, slide-guitar-driven gutbucket groove of "Smuggler's Blues," the epic Miami Viceballad "You Belong to the City," the inward-looking poignancy of "Soul Searchin'," and much more…

This disc, which has Dr. John at the controls as a producer, brings together a mix that brings out the best for all those concerned and involved with this project. There is no weakness here, it is a straight-ahead use of all the strengths of Shemekia Copeland, daughter of Johnny Copeland. The songs were well selected to effectively show off all her potency as a vocalist. There are some many good writers that are also players on this disc that the tunes fit like gloves. There are strong contributions by John "Fingers" Hahn, Mac Rebennack, and Shemekia Copeland herself. The tunes, varied in style, are all based in the deep blues, and were selected for their capability to push her vocal talents to constant new personal pinnacles. She keeps it interesting by varying the pace and on "The Push I Need," she sounds right at home singing this funky tune as a duet with Dr. John. She stays with the good Dr. through the tune as if she were doing this everyday. Then she turns around and seems just as comfortable singing "Happy Valentine's Day," as a slow bluesy torch-burner, with minimal accompaniment.

Cray found himself in some pretty intimidating company for this Grammy-winning blues guitar summit meeting, but he wasn't deterred, holding his own alongside his idol Albert Collins and Texas great Johnny Copeland. Cray's delivery of Muddy Waters' rhumba-rocking "She's into Something" was one of the set's many highlights.