Sometimes, you’ve simply got to talk back to the blues. That’s what happened to Jimmy Rushing, appearing here with the Count Basie Orchestra.

‘Rockpalast: The 50th Birthday Concerts’ illustrates how fertile Jack Bruce’s collaboration was with a certain UK guitarist. No, not Eric Clapton.

David Crosby, John Oates, Robert Plant, Lloyd Cole and Jackson Browne are among those on Nick DeRiso’s Best of 2014 list for rock and roots albums.

Brian Setzer, an unjustly unheralded guitar player, has this knack for connecting with the redux zeitgeist.

By the 1980s, all of the guitar gods were gone, or otherwise occupied. Into this unlikeliest of scenarios stepped Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Steve Cropper has long advocated for the 5 Royales, newly announced recipients of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Early Influence Award.

Michael McDonald can come off as a guilty pleasure, principally because his voice was so often caught in a web of too-slick production. Not here.

The picture is grainy, the sound far too tinny. Still, there’s no denying the magic going on as Bob Marley returns to “Is This Love.”

A previously unheard song from blues legend Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter finds him in an impish mood, even while losing a battle with ALS.

Peter Gabriel’s first new studio release in ages is a triumph of musical restraint, and a moment of layered narrative intrigue.