Sam Jost

When Sam Cooke signed with RCA Records in 1960, he had already had several hits ("You Send Me," "What A Wonderful World," and "Only Sixteen" among them) on the small independent label Keen Records. He had paid attention to the business sides of things, too, and he signed with RCA because he was allowed to keep control of his song publishing…

This album's color cover photo is an action shot, showing Magic Sam in the process of choking and bending his strings, a good hike up the fretboard. It isn't clear exactly what he is playing from the picture, although that certainly didn't stop dozens of pimply hippie guitar players from trying to figure it out. In the meantime, the record goes on and the first soloist out of the gate is Eddie Shaw, playing tenor sax. He is blowing over the top of an R&B riff that, although not out of the syntax of Chicago blues, would also have been quite fitting on a Wilson Pickett record. It is unfortunate that Magic Sam's recording career came to such an abrupt end, as he was one of the best artists working in the musical area between the urban blues tradition and newly developing soul music forms. This fusion was on the minds of many blues artists during the late '60s, and not just because it was aesthetically conceivable…

The Complete Wooly Bully Years 1963-1968 includes six albums on three CDs plus bonus recordings, including non-LP singles. The quintessential Tex-Mex band of the 1960s, Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs hailed from Dallas, Texas where Domingo "Sam" Samudio was born in 1937 and raised. After chart success eluded them after recording Haunted House for the Dingo label in 1965 they landed a contract with MGM Records, home of such rock 'n' roll artists as Roy Orbison, The Animals, and Herman's Hermits.

Sweet Dreams is the second release for Telarc by modern soul singer Mighty Sam McClain. On these 13 tracks, McClain delivers a powerful mix of originals and covers similar to one of his greatest influences, Bobby "Blue" Bland. Recording at the legendary Bearsville Studio in Woodstock, NY, McClain utlized his regular band of Kevin Belz (guitar), Bruce Katz (piano), Barry Seelen (Hammond B-3), Tim Ingles (bass), and Jim Arnold (drums) along with the addition of the Mighty Horns on several cuts, giving the album an extra funky edge.

Sam Gendel’s COOKUP—a new album comprising interpretations of R&B and soul hits originally released between 1992 and 2004—is out now on Nonesuch Records. As with his 2020 Nonesuch debut, Satin Doll, Gendel recorded COOKUP in his native California with his friends and collaborators Gabe Noel and Philippe Melanson; the trio again adopts an approach of simultaneous synchronized sonic construction/deconstruction of the album’s source material, which this time includes songs by Ginuwine, 112, Aaliyah, All-4-One, Soul 4 Real, Beyoncé, Joe, Erykah Badu, Mario, SWV, and Boyz II Men. Meshell Ndegeocello is featured on vocals for their take on 112's "Anywhere."

To call West Side Soul one of the great blues albums, one of the key albums (if not the key album) of modern electric blues is all true, but it tends to diminish and academicize Magic Sam's debut album. This is the inevitable side effect of time, when an album that is decades old enters the history books, but this isn't an album that should be preserved in amber, seen only as an important record. Because this is a record that is exploding with life, a record with so much energy, it doesn't sound old. Of course, part of the reason it sounds so modern is because this is the template for most modern blues, whether it comes from Chicago or elsewhere. Magic Sam may not have been the first to blend uptown soul and urban blues, but he was the first to capture not just the passion of soul, but also its subtle elegance, while retaining the firepower of an after-hours blues joint…

Stop! is the debut studio album by the English female singer-songwriter Sam Brown. It was originally released in June 1988, on the label A&M, and was distributed by Festival in Australia. Produced by Sam Brown, her brother Pete Brown, Pete Smith, Danny Schogger, and John Madden the album was recorded at the Power Plant, in London, England, with then-Pink Floyd member David Gilmour's guitar parts on "This Feeling" and "I'll Be In Love" being recorded at Greene Street Studios, in New York, United States. The track "Merry Go Round" has lyrics slightly adapted from W. H. Davies poem "Leisure".

The Room is a collection of folkloric pieces from various regions around South America, as interpreted by Fabiano do Nascimento and Sam Gendel, on 7-string nylon guitar and soprano saxophone, respectively. Presented with purity and focus, soaring and lamenting, this album presents a unique journey through lesser-known musical landscapes and traditions stretching from Argentina to the Amazon.