NICK DERISO: One of Shirley Brown’s early hits was called “Love is Built on a Strong Foundation,” produced by Oliver Sain for the Abet label. Same with her career. Born in West Memphis, Ark., Brown started like so many great sizzling soul singers do – in church. Not until herRead More

NICK DERISO: Recorded live at Montreal’s Rising Sun Club in January 1977, and later reissued by Just a Memory Records in ’99, “Hoochie Coochie Man” stands as one of the last testaments to the Gospel of Muddy. He was the bridge between country and city cool, an urban griot withRead More

NICK DERISO: With reggae, the song’s meaning isn’t always the point. More often, it’s the grooving from side to side. That was largely the case with Jamaican-born Leroy Shakespeare, whose Metroplex-based band made a bar-band legend by incessantly crisscrossing the South from 1988-2001. This recently reformed group was notably votedRead More

NICK DERISO: You would call Johnny J.’s stuff rockabilly, but that’s too small of a space. He’s got some blues in one corner, some echoey 1950s-era balladry in another. Carl Perkins, Fats Domino and Buddy Holly are party guests. This is the point where blues, jazz, country and rhythm musicRead More

The title of this Chicago song, named after a Greek character who eternally pushes a rock up hill only to have it roll back down, is sadly ironic.

They are, these odds and ends, the last great treasure left by one Sam Maghett — better known as Magic Sam. This god of the tremolo embodied (just as fully, but with far less fanfare) the same gritty and adventurous West Side Chicago swagger more commonly associated with Buddy GuyRead More

NICK DERISO: Finding an impressive record by Lionel Hampton, known for both his harmonic and rhythmic sophistication, is easy. Finding one that delights as much as its intrigues anymore, however, is rare. His legacy, now more than ever, is secure: Born in Louisville, Ky., in 1908, Hamp would record hundredsRead More

NICK DERISO: I must admit, even now, an abiding love for the inner-ear damage that “Purrrr,” this long-forgotten hard-pop release, offers. But there’s more to it: Hollyfaith’s debut on Epic is, in some ways, perfectly done guitar-focused music, raunchily loud but then welcomely tender — and, in no small way,Read More

NICK DERISO: This song, issued in the wake of the devastating attacks on New York City in 2001, nearly overwhelmed me with grief the first time I heard it. I thought of my father. He’s been dead 20 years this summer, and I must admit that — like everything fromRead More

This record was, Blanchard told me, his love letter to Miles Davis. In retrospect, it was the beginning of his ascension from young lion into modern standard bearer, too. Born in New Orleans, and brought up in one of the final incarnations of Art Blakey’s traveling finishing school the JazzRead More