Various Artists Uncut Rip This Joint

This is the third consecutive "Euro-Jazz" CD compilation produced by Jazz & Tzaz Magazine (Greece), featuring a large proportion of the groups and musicians that will participate in this year’s concerts of the 4th European Jazz Festival in Athens. Creative music and musicians from all over Europe give an integral scope of a special kind and variety, and a special feeling of contemporary jazz in Europe. This year’s festival is enriched by the participation of the new European Union members from Central and Eastern Europe. Jazz & Τζαζ Magazine would like to thank all European Embassies and Cultural Institutes (plus the Municipality of Athens) for their kind and helpful collaboration in making this CD, as well as all the musicians and record labels involved.

This four-disc, 68-track collection paints a broad definition of the blues, with cuts ranging from vintage country blues (Robert Johnson's “Cross Road Blues,” Son House's “Death Letter Blues”) to uptown jazz blues (Nina Simone's “Blues for My Mama,” Billie Holiday's “Billie’s Blues”), Chicago blues (a live version of “Howling Wolf” by Muddy Waters), British blues (Jeff Beck's “JB’s Blues”), and contemporary acoustic blues (“Am I Wrong” by Keb' Mo'), with plenty of stops in between, making for a random but varied playlist that circles the different approaches and musical definitions of the genre.

This disc is an integral part of a series Telarc is doing – taking albums that were big sellers by prominent artists and having an innovative group of solid blues players do their interpretations of a variety of the songs from the original album. They have done this with the Beatles' White Album (calling it The Blues White Album) and Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde with good success, which will probably continue with this new interpretation of the Stones' 1972 vintage album. Telarc put together a dynamite "house" band, including Brian Stoltz (ex-Neville Brothers) on guitar and former Double Trouble rhythm section members Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton, and then pulled in many more celebrated artists to handle the leads. the Stones, who started out as a blues and R&B band, always maintained those roots; thus, many of the songs keep their original shape. This is a solid retooling of this classic Stones LP. Telarc has taken the original double disc and picked the songs the artists felt remained truest to their respective traditions and packaged it as a ten-song disc, complete with a cover notes that make it look the same.

Home In This World: Woody Guthrie’s Dust Bowl Ballads is an interpretation of Guthrie’s landmark 1940 album Dust Bowl Ballads. The album features an all-star cast, assembled by Randall Poster, that interpret the songs on the only non-compilation album of Guthrie’s career, including everyone from Grammy Award winners Lee Ann Womack and John Paul White to poet laureate Mark Lanegan and country and Americana star Lillie Mae, Shovels and Rope, mandolinist Chris Thile, Colter Wall, Watkins Family Hour, Waxahatchee, Lost Dog Street Band, The Felice Brothers, Secret Sisters, Swamp Dogg, and Parker Millsap.

Compilation CD from Warner Special Products / Music By Mail. Nice selection of Rock songs incuding Foreigner, Ratt, Motley Crue, Whitesnake, J. Geils Band & many more. Great compilation CD.