Blues

Originally released in 1961, electric guitarist Grant Green's first album with Blue Note Records, Grant's First Stand, has been reissued. Green has a solid swinger's knack for skippy, airborne jazz rhythms, but some of his lines wouldn't sound out of place in a Chicago blues bar.

Widely regarded as one of the best guitarists of all time, blues legend B.B. King is still recording at age 82. Music critic Milo Miles reviews King's newest album, One Kind Favor.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews the guitarist and singer's new album, The Blues Rolls On. Released in early September, the disc includes collaborations with B.B. King, George Thorogood, James Cotton and more.

Fresh Air's rock critic reviews Is It News, the new album from Texas blues musician Doyle Bramhall. He's had two previous discs, but this is the first collection where the songs are all his own.

The singer, songwriter and drummer has played in his own band, the Chessmen, and with a host of Texas music titans from Stevie Ray Vaughan to Marcia Ball.

Koko Taylor long ago earned her title of "Queen of the Blues." In the mid-sixties, she came to Chicago from a sharecropper farm in Tennessee. There, she was discovered by the celebrated songwriter and performer Willie Dixon, who provided her with her crossover hit, "Wang Dang Doodle".

In 1975, after her record company went out of business, she signed with Alligator Records — and critic Milo Miles says Old School, her new album on that label, embodies Alligator's straightforward, hard-rocking blues style.

Our rock critic reviews Springtime Can Kill You the new CD from singer-songwriter Jolie Holland.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews To Tulsa and Back by J.J. Cale, and Roll It Down by Canadian-American Ray Bonneville.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews Down in the Alley, the new CD from Alvin Youngblood Hart.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews the reissue Jumpin at the Apollo (Delmark) featuring saxophonist Illinois Jacquet.

Music Critic Milo Miles reviews Downhome Sophisticate the new CD by Corey Harris.