James McCartney, a musician with a blessing/curse of a last name, tries to come to terms with the strength needed to overcome such strokes of luck/misery on “Strong as You”

Looking back, it seemed preordained. Stevie Nicks met Dave Stewart years ago, and had a good feeling about him. “Maybe,” Stevie Nicks says toward the end of the film In Your Dreams, “this played out for a reason.”

Guitarist Steve Hackett, with an assist from criminally underrated fellow Genesis alum Ray Wilson, has finally found the emotional centerpoint within one of their old band’s signature tunes, “Carpet Crawlers.”

A pair of big-selling 1980s albums from either end of the rock spectrum get the deluxe reissue treatment, one the then-emerging indie-rockers R.E.M. and the other the confirmed pop-rock stars Huey Lewis and the News.

The last recordings of an early rock legend had none of the crunchy grit of “Dizzy Miss Lizzy.” Instead, Larry Williams reimagined his sound (and with “Bony Moronie,” one of his most famous songs) as ass-shaking 1970s funk bombs.

This imminently listenable brand of no-frills rock might have sold in any decade. But only in the 1980s, a period marked by a steep swing rightward after the polyester era’s excesses, could Huey Lewis and the News have been such big stars.

Taking a page from Cannonball Adderley, who had a remarkable ability to take the complex and make it feel approachable, Christian McBride’s new album is as relatable as it is intense, as ebullient as it is substantive.

If 1987′s Document heralded the moment when R.E.M. started to get away from us, the follow up Green confirmed things: This wasn’t going to be our little secret anymore.

Always out of their time, the Del-Lords made a scruffy early-1980s debut in the age of synthesized MTV flashes in the pan. They return now with a suitably old-fashioned but similarly ageless amalgam of heartfelt lyrics and crunchy licks.

Even as he closes out the South American leg of a new tour with Paul McCartney tonight, guitarist Brian Ray is preparing for a series of solo shows with his sizzling new band the Bayonets.