Like all the great artists, Ryan Perry isn’t afraid to rip it up and start again. Since 2007, the Mississippi bandleader has blazed a reputation in the award-winning Homemade Jamz Blues Band. But when it came to his solo debut, Perry took a leap of faith and trusted his talent to land him safe on the other side. Now, High Risk, Low Reward announces the touchdown of a solo artist to treasure. “This album,” he says, “was the hardest thing I’ve done to date.”

This might be the best debut album ever delivered by an American blues band, a bold, powerful, hard-edged, soulful essay in electric blues with a native Southern ambience. Some lingering elements of the psychedelic era then drawing to a close can be found in "Dreams," along with the template for the group's on-stage workouts with "Whipping Post," and a solid cover of Muddy Waters' "Trouble No More." There isn't a bad song here, and only the fact that the group did even better the next time out keeps this from getting the highest possible rating.

Completely Well was B.B. King's breakthrough album in 1969, which finally got him the long-deserved acclaim that was no less than his due. It contained his signature number, "The Thrill Is Gone," and eight other tunes, six of them emanating from King's pen, usually in a co-writing situation. Hardliners point to the horn charts and the overdubbed strings as the beginning of the end of King's old style that so identifiably earmarked his early sides for the Bihari Brothers and his later tracks for ABC, but this is truly the album that made the world sit up and take notice of B.B. King. The plus points include loose arrangements and a small combo behind him that never dwarfs the proceedings or gets in the way. King, for his part, sounds like he's having a ball, playing and singing at peak power. This is certainly not the place to start your B.B. King collection, but it's a nice stop along the way before you finish it.

In the year that sees Ana Popovic celebrating 20 years as a touring musician, the award winning guitar player, singer and songwriter releases 'Live for LIVE', an exciting, versatile CD demonstrating why she's proudly looking back at a career of thousands of shows worldwide. This high-energy concert showcases not only Ana's mesmerizing guitar skills but also her fabulous band, successfully merging musical styles. Ana's passion on stage is so evident that the title sums it up, this is what she lives for!

Recorded in the fall of 2006, shortly after B.B. King's 81st birthday, Live is really an abridged audio complement to a video release, containing 12 of the 19 tracks available on the DVD of the same title. King has made a lot of live albums in his time, but his approach hasn't changed much over the years. In addition to his obvious talents as a guitarist and showman, he has also been fortunate in that his chosen style of music, a version of the blues growing out of the swing-influenced jump blues of the 1940s, has not only remained perennially popular but grown in acceptance. As performed here by the B.B. King Blues Band, it is still essentially the same, a jazzy roadhouse music that leaves plenty of room for solos. At one time, most of those solos were played by King on his guitar, but now he is content to give the showcase to his horn players, as he does on "Blues Man," or organist James Toney, who claims the lion's share of "Rock Me Baby." There is still plenty of guitar work, however, and King remains seemingly as agile as ever. He is also a relaxed, comfortable frontman, engaging in easy banter with both band and audience.

Fleetwood Mac are a British-American band formed in 1967, in London. The band has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. In 1998, selected members of Fleetwood Mac were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music.

The Real Folk Blues series on Chess wasn't really folk, but titled that way, perhaps to gain the attention of young white listeners who had started to get turned on to the blues during the 1960s folk revival. And the Howlin' Wolf volumes in the series were not particularly more folk-oriented than his other Chess recordings, but more or less arbitrary selections of tracks that he'd done from the mid-'50s to the mid-'60s. It's thus also arbitrary to do a two-fer reissue of his The Real Folk Blues and More Real Folk Blues, combined here onto a single disc. That doesn't mean, though, that this isn't very good and sometimes great electric blues music. The Real Folk Blues, with tracks from 1956 to 1965, is by far the more modern of the pair in arrangements, and has a good share of classics: "Killing Floor," "Sittin' on Top of the World," "Built for Comfort," "Tail Dragger," and "Three Hundred Pounds of Joy".

The Croatian-born artist already caused a sensation with the celebrated album Bad Penny at the Blues Caravan 2018 . “A first-class debut that will liven up the scene,” it said in the press. Now Sky is returning with a hard rock-like second album to make us her accomplice: “If you asked the people around me, they would describe me as “Woman Named Trouble“, “ she says with a mischievous grin.

Though they ultimately made their name as a blues-rock band, and Peter Green's admiration of artists like Jerry Garcia eventually found its way into their music, Fleetwood Mac began as a straight-ahead blues band. A bunch of Brits devoted to the music of Chicago and the Delta, Green and company couldn't help but put their own twist on the blues, but they were simultaneously reverential towards it. This is the situation presented in this 1968 live recording. While the sound quality is less than stellar, it's good enough to make the guitar talents of Green and Jeremy Spencer obvious, as they work up effective solos over "Got To Move," "Vuzz Me" and others.

50 - Just Warming Up! Is the new album from American blues legend and multi-instrumentalist Lucky Peterson - one of the most riveting performers of the modern blues era. A searing lead guitarist, a rich and powerful organist, and a first-rate vocalist, Lucky's musicianship effortlessly translates gospel, rock, and jazz into a 21st century blues. Many reminisce about the bygone days of the blues, but it's flame still burns hot here in the hands of Lucky Peterson!

If you thought that Chris Rea's reasonably priced 11 CD boxset called Blue Guitars, featuring over 130 songs, was a bit too much to take in at one time, then this two CD distillation might be more your style. Here, the best 22 tracks from the box are compiled on two CDs for your sampling pleasure. Includes 'Where the Blues Come From', 'The Soul of My Father's Shadow', 'Lucky Day', 'Who Killed Love' and more.

Fleetwood Mac are a British-American band formed in 1967, in London. The band has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. In 1998, selected members of Fleetwood Mac were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music.

Although he didn't become widely known until the 1970s, Dr. John had been active in the music industry since the late '50s, when the teenager was still known as Mac Rebennack. A formidable boogie and blues pianist with a lovable growl of a voice, his most enduring achievements fused with New Orleans R&B, rock, and Mardi Gras craziness to come up with his own brand of "voodoo" music. He's also quite accomplished and enjoyable when sticking to purely traditional forms of blues and R&B. On record, he veers between the two approaches, making for an inconsistent and frequently frustrating legacy that often makes the listener feel as if "the Night Tripper" (as he's nicknamed himself) has been underachieving.

At Fillmore East is the first live album by American rock band the Allman Brothers Band, and their third release overall. Produced by Tom Dowd, the album was released in July 1971 in the United States by Capricorn Records. As the title indicates, the recording took place at the New York City music venue Fillmore East, which was run by concert promoter Bill Graham. It was recorded over the course of three nights in March 1971 and features the band performing extended jam versions of songs such as "Whipping Post", "You Don't Love Me" and "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed." At Fillmore East was the band's artistic and commercial breakthrough, and has been considered by some critics to be one of the greatest live albums in rock music. In 2004, the album was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress, deemed to be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important" by the National Recording Registry. Rolling Stone included at number 49 in their 2003 list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, describing it as "rock's greatest live double LP." The album was also included in the books 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (2005) and 1,000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die (2008).

Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup power trio consisting of bassist/singer Jack Bruce, drummer Ginger Baker, and guitarist/singer Eric Clapton. The band is widely regarded as the world's first successful supergroup. In their career, they sold more than 15 million copies of their albums worldwide. The band made a significant impact on the popular music of the time, and, along with Jimi Hendrix and other notable guitarists and bands, popularised the use of the wah-wah pedal. They provided a heavy yet technically proficient musical theme that foreshadowed and influenced the emergence of British bands such as Led Zeppelin, The Jeff Beck Group, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath in the late 1960s and the early 1970s.