Blues

Music critic Milo Miles reviews Avalon Blues, (Vanguard) a new tribute album to country blues performer Mississippi John Hurt.

Otis Taylor brings his banjo to the studio for a concert and conversation. We'll hear tracks from his new CD, White African. Taylor plays guitar and ukelele in addition to banjo. His music is often described as minimalist, and his lyrics are often stories of race and racism. He's been compared to John Lee Hooker.

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

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

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

He's written a new biography of blues legend Muddy Waters who is credited with inventing electric blues and creating the template for the rock and roll band. The book is Can't Be Statisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters. (Little, Brown). Gordon also produced and directed an accompanying documentary of the same name which will be shown as part of the PBS American Masters series next year. Gordon's other books are It Came From Memphis, and The King on the Road. He also produced the Al Green box set, Anthology.

His album, Down in the Alley has been nominated for a Grammy as Best Traditional Blues Recording. He's been playing acoustic blues for nearly 20 years. Though he was raised in California, his roots musically and otherwise are in rural Mississippi. He was influenced by Charlie Patton, Leadbelly, Blind Willie McTell and others. Later he was also influenced by Jimi Hendrix and Taj Mahal.

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

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

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.

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.

Fresh Air's jazz critic reviews a new CD box set, Boogie Woogie and Blues Piano, featuring remastered recordings from such greats as Chicago's Jimmy Yancy, Meade Lux Lewis, Pete Johnson and more — all solo or in small ensembles.

Her father was Louis Armstrong's music director and a noted bandleader in his own right; her mother was a member of the iconic International Sweethearts of Rhythm. Critic Nat Hentoff says that pedigree — and her own unmistakable chops — make Cat Russell "the real thing" in a crowd of jazz wannabes "who couldn't lasted through a chorus in a contest with Ella Fitzgerald or Betty Carter."

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.

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.

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.

Walter Jacobs, aka "Little Walter," was a harmonica virtuoso whose life was consumed by blues music. A new five-disc Hip-O Select re-release of Walter's complete recordings for the record label Chess is on shelves now.

Texas Sheiks offers new versions of old blues, Western swing and ragtime music. The Sheiks are led by singer-songwriter Geoff Muldaur and the album features the guitar work of the late Steve Bruton.

For decades, singer songwriter Geoff Muldaur has been reinterpreting blues and jazz of the '20s and '30s. Today, we'll play some of the tracks from Muldaur's new album, Texas Sheiks, and he'll perform some songs live. Muldaur's band, also called Texas Sheiks, is currently on tour.

With his wide leaps between long tones and a sometimes generous use of space, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith nods occasionally to 20th-century European concert music. But he's also one of the modern improvisers most grounded in African-American vernaculars; he's the stepson of Mississippi bluesman Alex Wallace, and he played for a spell in Little Milton's blues band. Smith's projects are all over the map, but often have this much in common with the blues: the byplay between a strong voice — his horn, in this case — and percussive strings.