You may think you’ve never heard of the McCrary Sisters, but you probably have anyway: The quartet was featured, for instance, on Dr. John’s Grammy-winning 2012 Dan Auerbach-produced triumph Locked Down.

Playing an upside down Gibson Flying V, Albert King set about turning everything you thought you knew about the blues, about rock, and certainly about the left-handed guitarist himself on its head with this stunning Stax release.

This song, a new live interpolation of a Miles Davis cut from 1961′s Someday My Prince Will Come, might be the best argument Nicholas Payton has ever made for the use of the term Black American Music (or #BAM) instead of jazz.

Thirty years ago today, a “big bang” of sorts occurred on television. This moment would profoundly affect R&B, rock, pop, MTV, and general pop culture.

We took a break from our non-stop heavy rotation of Boz Scaggs’ new Top 20 album Memphis to dig further back into his stirring catalog of sophisticated soul, sizzling R&B and gritty blues.

Since his career went supernova with Silk Degrees, Boz Scaggs has continued to hone his craft, digging deeper into the blues, employing broader jazz brushstrokes — and nowhere is that fine tuning more obvious than on his terrific new album.

The Pacific Coast Jazz label has produced a steady stream of laid-back contemporary jazz albums, and Norman Johnson’s sophomore solo effort Get It While You Can is no exception.

A meditation on the most wrenching, soul-deep cries for love from the master of such things, Lonely and Blue illuminates Otis Redding’s way with a lyric in a manner that straight-forward greatest hits packages never have.

Boz Scaggs references some of the most distinctive, timeless R&B recordings of the 1970s, even as he continues exploring outward from that tradition on Memphis. Like Scaggs himself, it’s not easily pegged.

Something like blues, something like R&B, something like pre-Beatles rock. James Hunter is simply something else, and this soul-lifting, groove-tastic lead track from his forthcoming album only confirms it.