Steve Miller says his next album will be “a really interesting thing” where the classic rocker combines jazz instrumentals with blues lyrics.

It would be easy enough to tag this as Southern rock, or as blues, or even — at times — as gospel, were Randall Bramblett’s The Bright Spots not so consistently all of those things, and something more.

The standard-bearing harp influence of Walter Jacobs — he established the vocabulary still used by nearly every amplified modern player — is well documented. This guest-packed concert tribute reminds you of his composing prowess, too.

Jimmy Vivino’s connection with the Band runs deep, and it continues right through to his upcoming release 13 Live, which was recorded at Levon Helm’s rustic concert space.

If your complaint about Michael McDonald’s brand of city-slicker soul, dating all the way back to the Doobie Brothers, was that it lacked a certain grease-popping earthiness, “Judgement Day” certainly bolsters the argument.

James Cotton has long referred to his regular working band as “my family,” so close is their sense of musical symbiosis, so long is their history. Still, to my ear, he’s never put out a more personal album than the forthcoming Cotton Mouth Man.

From its band name –– which sounds like a something off the front porch of a shotgun shack — to its muscular, harp-driven opening track, you’d be forgiven for assuming Gator and Mudcat’s Back in the Game was just another blues-rocking project.

Some magic was bound to surround this, as Jimmy Vivino reunited with long-time former collaborators for the first time in years. But doing so in Levon Helm’s old-barn studio, where Vivino had made so many memories, only heightened the date’s sense of emotional reminiscence.

A fiery aggression surrounds Universal Breakdown Blues, as Popa Chubby doesn’t lament the dangerous and uncertain era in which we live so much as rail against it with all of his might.

Beth Hart, a raw and dynamic singer, has joined forces once again with guitarist Joe Bonamassa — and, as with 2011′s Don’t Explain, this collaboration brings out the best in both.