Various Artists Andrew Greenwald A Thing Made Whole

When it came to belting out R&B and Jump Blues, the men didn’t always have it their own way. As I’M A BAD, BAD GIRL proves, there were any number of raucous chanteuses ready, willing & able to make their presence felt. These women were strong, independent and sassy, and knew precisely what they wanted. Most of the time it was for their man to be either under their thumb, or atop their bed – and they made no bones about it! This is predominantly rootin’, tootin’, bootin’ stuff, with the brass sounding, the horns wailing, and the guitarist getting just the occasional look-in. But to add shade to this comprehensive 3-CD set, there are cooler sides from singers like Betty Hall Jones, Ella Mae Morse and Myra Taylor, and Gospel, from Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Faye Adams.

Just Love is just that … a labor of love from artists all over the world, paying tribute and performing the songs of Audrey Auld, who lost her battle with cancer in 2015. Audrey Auld-Mezera was an Australian-American native of Tasmania, touring singer/songwriter who resided at times in both Nashville and the coast of California. She left behind a musical legacy of songs ranging from poignant to empowering to downright cheeky.

The seeds of soul music, were nurtured in the garden of gospel and planted in the R&B field in the 1950s by such artists as The Dominoes, Five Royales, Ray Charles and James Brown. Early in the next decade the music blossomed in America, and by the mid- 1960s it was spreading around the world. It was the music of black America, and this album showcases many of the men who made the 1960s and 1970s such a soulful era.

In the 1950s, a few young men, known as Badius, embarked on a nearly 2,500-mile (4000 km) journey from the northern rural interior of Cabo Verde’s Santiago Island to the island of São Tomé off the Atlantic coast of central Africa. Incredibly, they made the arduous journey not to earn a better living or send money back home — but to simply buy an accordion, locally known as a gaita. They would work years in harsh conditions to earn enough to buy the instrument and a few more years to buy a ticket back to Santiago.

Of the many centennial tributes to Ellington, this one offers a stance that is marginally authentic, claiming to give a glimpse of what Ellington would've sounded like had he been a pop artist, which he was not. George Duke produced this session with three different big bands: one from L.A., another in Chicago, and the third is "Kashif's Biggest Band." There are many outstanding legit jazz artists playing in these big bands though, and they lend a certain amount of traditional feel within this overtly watered-down Ellington-ian effort.

A special album of covers of Hendrix staples by bands you wouldn't expect (e.g., The Cure, The Pretenders, PM Dawn) and by blues giants (Clapton, Buddy Guy). The results are always interesting and frequently eye-opening.

We're a Happy Family - A Tribute To Ramones is a tribute album by various artists as a tribute to the Ramones. It started when Johnny Ramone was confronted with the idea of a tribute album and was asked if he wanted to participate, to which he agreed, as long as he would have full control over the project. He was able to get Rob Zombie as a co-producer, and call upon different bands to participate. Rob Zombie also did the cover artwork, and Stephen King, being a fan of the Ramones, wrote the liner notes.