Want it

This is one of the best efforts of John Hammond's career. It features the old blues numbers that have been a staple of Hammond's work, but with a slippery, playful funkiness that was never there before. Hammond has always had a strong voice, and the music flows out of him more naturally and appealingly than ever before. In fact, he sounds so at ease that he falls right in with Charles Brown on the two numbers where Mr. "Drifting Blues" himself plays piano. Little Charlie & the Nightcats back up Hammond on seven of the album's dozen tracks. They introduce an easy-going swing to numbers by Little Walter, Johnny "Guitar" Watson and Howlin' Wolf that allows Hammond to give these old songs a new spin and make them his own.

Bryan, like Michael Bolton, Neil Diamond, Rod Stewart and others, has since sold out and become a ballad singer, but this proud album reflects a very different approach. His talent is showcased here in the songwriting, the raw rock and roll sound and his trademark voice…

A live document of the Brian Jones-era Rolling Stones sounds enticing, but the actual product is a letdown, owing to a mixture of factors, some beyond the producers' control and other very much their doing. The sound on the original LP was lousy – which was par for the course on most mid-'60s live rock albums – and the remasterings have only improved it marginally, and for that matter not all of it's live; a couple of old studio R&B covers were augmented by screaming fans that had obviously been overdubbed…

West coast bluesman Coco Montoya has been known as a major guitar threat for years – we are, after all, talking about a guy who learned at the feet of Albert Collins – but after all this time spent focused on pursuing the blues fret-burner path, Montoya shows a new side of himself on I Want It All Back. There's plenty of piercingly lyrical guitar work, of course, but it's Montoya the singer who emerges as the dominant figure in these sessions, leaning into a smooth, soulful lilt that's not a million miles away from the sound of Los Lobos lead vocalist David Hidalgo. Not only that, Montoya is letting this cool-crooning approach lead him down different musical avenues, as well.

You Want It Darker is the fourteenth and final studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, released on October 16, 2016, by Columbia Records, nineteen days before Cohen's death. The album was created towards the end of his life and focuses on death, God, and humor. It was released to critical acclaim. The title track was awarded a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance in January 2018. After touring extensively between 2008 and 2013, Leonard Cohen began to suffer "multiple fractures of the spine" among other physical problems, according to his son Adam Cohen. Due to Leonard Cohen's mobility issues, You Want It Darker was recorded in the living room of his home in Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles and then sent by e-mail to his musical collaborators.