NICK DERISO: The almost mythical groove of saxophonist Maceo Parker, best known for stints with James Brown and P-Funk, has always been a canny blending of styles from a long-past era. There’s the muscular bebop of Charlie Parker, the angular soul of Ray Charles, the playful R&B of Julian “Cannonball” Adderley. Sometimes all in one cut. So, it’s no surprise [...]

NICK DERISO: As good as her studio recordings are, they have a certain airless perfection that doesn’t quite fit the rollicking piano genius of Marcia Ball. Hers is a bubbling soulfulness, loose limbed and informal – and it’s dripping over the sides of “Live! Down the Road,” Ball’s first-ever full-length live album. Ball quickly settles into a familiar Gulf Coast [...]

The late, and unjustly obscure Washington D.C. guitar guru Danny Gatton — known, quite simply, as The Humbler — finally got his splashy major-label debut with this one, and it sparkles in the white-hot spotlight. Good thing, too. By 1994, one of music’s most versatile, talented and electric performers had committed suicide. In the interim, Gatton’s recordings more often included [...]

This was, I always thought, the record that Boz Scaggs should have been making. Come On Home is a rocking, rib-sticking roux of blues, R&B and soul in small-band configurations. Scaggs might add some horns, but that’s about it. The master of the silky smooth 1970s lover-man ballad, he actually started out digging this stuff. The story goes that Scaggs, [...]

There probably isn’t a guitarist today who is at once rootsy, complex and yet undernoticed as James “Blood” Ulmer. He stands at the juxtaposition of so many styles that he cannot be put neatly in a single one of those. His uniquely scrabbling guitar attack, as once described by Village Voice music critic Greg Tate, is “the missing link between [...]

by Nick DeRiso This two-hour documentary explores music from both southern and northern Louisiana, a rare tip of the hat to both traditions. So you have the expected segments on Acadiana- and New Orleans-based standouts Rosie Ledet, the Hackberry Ramblers, Henry Butler, Nathan Williams and the Jambalaya Cajun Band, among others. But respected filmmaker Robert Mugge (“Deep Blues,” 1991) also [...]

NICK DERISO: It was payback time for ’60s-stars Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Ringo Starr, and the rhythm section from the Rolling Stones. After all, vocalist and harmonica player Chester Arthur Burnett — you might know him better as Howlin’ Wolf – had been one of the chief architects, at least in spirit, for the decade of sound and fury that [...]

NICK DERISO: The Lightnin’ Bugs’ first live album begins, fittingly, with this boozy tribute to “Mama Rosanne,” a primer on the pleasing, blues-based gumbo that’s quickly become associated with this north Louisiana-based group. Start with healthy dashes of wheezing accordions, plucky fiddles and second-line drum-groove. Then, about midway through, sprinkle in one happy fan’s long, long whistle of approval. You’ll [...]

by Nick DeRiso It’s hard, if you really listen, not to be startled when 1955′s “Bo Diddley” — all fast-driving rhythms and nervy aggression — gets going. Diddley ditched chord changes for propulsive determination more than half a century ago, and it’s still news.

NICK DERISO: Go into this hidden-away New Orleans gem expecting blues — what with Jim Dickinson producing and East Memphis Slim as a sideman — and you’re in for a big surpise. The House Levelers were more of a thumpy roots-music outfit, one that was at once sharp as scissors, old-buddy loveable and slam-danceable. Key selections here, both relevant then [...]