Alexie Texas

Texas release their new album, Hi, featuring 14 new tracks including new single ‘Mr Haze’. Sharleen Spiteri and bass guitarist Johnny McElhone found some outtakes from the original ‘White on Blonde’ sessions that they forgot existed. Initially they thought these undiscovered gems could be released as a ‘lost’ album but listening to the tracks inspired them to write some really strong new material.

From pioneering guitar legends Blind Lemon Jefferson & Blind Willie Johnson to pre-blues songsters and field holler-inspired singers, the state of Texas has long played a key role in the evolution of the blues. This Rough Guide charts the many different facets to this incredibly rich and diverse of early blues genres.

Legacy's second reissue of Texas Flood, the 1983 debut from Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, now expands the album to two CDs, adding a complete concert given at Ripley's Music Hall in Philadelphia on October 20, 1983, four months after the record was released. On the first disc, an early version of "Tin Pan Alley (aka Roughest Place in Town)" is added to the original album but that is the only carry-over from the 1999 expansion. That disc also had three live cuts, but those were taken from a different 1983 concert, so this 2013 30th Anniversary Edition offers something completely new: an entire radio broadcast featuring SRV and Double Trouble at the peak of their power.

Similar to his first Shelter outing (Getting Ready), but with more of a rock feel. That's due as much to the material as the production. Besides covering tunes by Jimmy Rogers, Howlin' Wolf, and Elmore James, King tackles compositions by Leon Russell and, more unexpectedly, Bill Withers, Isaac Hayes-David Porter, and John Fogerty (whose "Lodi" is reworked into "Lowdown in Lodi"). King's own pen remained virtually in retirement, as he wrote only one of the album's tracks.

Johnny Copeland's tenure on Rounder Records was mostly productive. He made several albums that ranged from decent to very good, increased his audience and name recognition, and got better recording facilities and company support than at most times in his career. The 15 numbers on this anthology cover four Rounder sessions, and include competent renditions of familiar numbers. But what makes things special are the final three selections; these were part of Copeland's superb and unjustly underrated Bringin' It All Back Home album, recorded in Africa, which matched Texas shuffle licks with swaying, riveting African rhythms.

This is a good collection of piano-accompanied vocals sporting bluesmen who worked the lumber camps and oil fields of rural Texas, as well as the red-light districts of cities like Galveston and Houston. Big Boy Knox shows a strong city influence in his decorative right-hand work, as does Robert Cooper, whose playing points to the influence of Fats Waller. Joe Pullem is on board with his hit, "Black Gal," which is perhaps overstated by three takes and a variation. The vocals are good, however, and the piano playing is uniformly excellent. Stylistically, this music falls somewhere between ragtime, blues, and vaudeville.

When Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown walked into the studio in the early '80s to record Alright Again!, he had already had an illustrious career by most standards. Yet, much of Gate's best output had been behind him by more than two decades; with Alright Again!, he set out to prove he was still a relevant artist. The album won Brown a Grammy, and its follow-up, One More Mile, was a Grammy-nominated record as well. Texas Swing combines the two records, culling 17 tracks from the sessions. Listening to this album, it is easy to see why the songs had such impact. Never one to be pigeonholed, Brown and his backup band move from slick blues on "Frosty" and "One More Mile" to breezy swing reminiscent of the best big bands on Roy Milton's "Information Blues" and Brown's own "Dollar Got the Blues"…