Outstanding 5th studio disc by this awesome blues/rock guitar axeslinger from Indiana. Featuring 12 tracks of top-shelf, world-class, powerful, dynamic, ass-kickin', blues-based guitar rock excellence that lands down hard between a rock and a blues place. Combining strong songs and amazing musicianship, complete with an excellent sonic production, it all adds up to create an incredible, sophisticated, memorable blues/rock guitar experience. Jay Jesse Johnson is a true modern day guitar hero whose bad-ass six string playing skills are through the jam:house roof. Combining amazing technique with feel, killer tones to die for and drawing from excellent vintage musical influences/inspirations, Triple J has created his own stand-out voice on the instrument.
During the last quarter of the 20th century, and thanks largely to Eric Clapton's remarkable devotion to his memory, Robert Leroy Johnson posthumously became the most celebrated Delta blues musician of the pre-WWII era. Among numerous editions of his complete works and various anthologies that combine his recordings with those of his contemporaries and followers, J.S.P.'s The Road to Robert Johnson and Beyond combines many of his essential performances with those by dozens of other blues artists from Blind Lemon Jefferson and Henry Thomas to Muddy Waters and Elmore James. 105 tracks fill four CDs with several decades' worth of strongly steeped blues that trace the African American migration from the deep south on up into Chicago. This is a fine way to savor the recorded evidence, as primary examples from Blind Blake, Charley Patton, Son House, Charlie McCoy, Walter Vincson, Skip James, Ma Rainey, Tampa Red, Kokomo Arnold, Scrapper Blackwell, Leroy Carr, Lonnie Johnson, and Peetie Wheatstraw lead directly to early modern masters like Big Joe Williams, Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Bill Broonzy, Johnny Temple, Leroy Foster, Johnny Shines, Homesick James Williamson, Robert Jr. Lockwood, Snooky Pryor, Little Walter, and David Honeyboy Edwards, among many others.
2018 release. Take a ride along the banks of the Mississippi River, pull up a stool in any St. Louis blues joint and talk will soon turn to the musician who's giving the city it's soundtrack. Jeremiah Johnson's towering reputation has been hard-earned. In 2018, Straitjacket wears his soul on it's sleeve. Produced by Mike Zito, and tracked live by the crack-squad studio band of Frank Bauer (sax/vocals), Benet Schaeffer (drums) and Tom Maloney (bass), the tracklisting takes in plenty of playful moments, like the title track's hectic funk-blues complaint to a controlling girlfriend, or the grooving Dirty Mind, about a lover calling up for "a little company" at 2am.
After four years off records and in obscurity, Lonnie Johnson launched his final comeback with this release, which has been reissued on CD. Teamed with tenor saxophonist Hal Singer, pianist Claude Hopkins, bassist Wendell Marshall and drummer Bobby Donaldson, Johnson sings and plays guitar on a variety of blues, showing that the layoff (he was working at the time as a janitor) had not hurt his abilities in the slightest.
A rare find for fans of this acclaimed guitarist/songwriter, Seven Worlds is the long-lost solo debut from Eric Johnson. Cut in the late '70s, this album is far more than a promising collection of demos; it's a full length, fully-produced album that showcases all of Johnson's awesome talent – not only as a guitar virtuoso, but as a talented pop/rock songwriter. Tunes such as "Showdown" clearly indicate the talent that Johnson had, even at this early stage. A classy false start to a great career, and a must for fans of Eric Johnson.