Guitarist, singer, harmonica player and songwriter Grady Champion released two very impressive recordings in 1999 and 2001 for Shanachie Records. Both his debut, "Payin' For My Sins" and "2 Days Short of a Week" put Champion on the national touring blues map and helped launch his career beyond the boundaries of his native Jackson, Mississippi.

Many may disagree, but it’s always struck me as rather peculiar that The Clash were labelled as a punk band. It seems no mention of the movement can go by without the obligatory namedropping of the (utterly brilliant) Sex Pistols – so here it is – but whereas they and contemporaries such as The Buzzcocks seemed to plunder traditional rock’n’roll as their main inspiration, The Clash looked more to blues and the sounds of their native Brixton – which in turn were predominantly the sounds of Jamaica.

Unlike any blues music released in the 1960s, the idiosyncratic acoustic forms created by J.B. Lenoir during his tenure with L&R Records recall traditional country blues while simultaneously pushing the genre in new directions. Miles removed–in conception and feel–from the electric Chicago blues of his early career, Lenoir's L&R work is wholly acoustic, intensely personal, and seems to pulse and surge to its own uniquely designed metronome. VIETNAM BLUES collects Lenoir's last two albums (before his untimely death in 1967), 1965's ALABAMA BLUES and 1966's DOWN IN MISSISSIPPI, both of which were produced under the supervision of blues icon Willie Dixon.

Sonya Hunter - Favorite Short Stories
FLAC, EAC, LOG & CUE | Lossless Artwork | Size: 223 MB
Label/Cat#: Heyday HEY 010-CD | Country/Year: US 1991
Genre: Neofolk, Singer/Songwriter | Hoster: Filesonic/Uploaded

The first album by San Francisco-based singer/songwriter Sonya Hunter starts with an interesting revision of the traditional "Once I Had a Sweetheart," set to a plodding military-style snare drum beat and featuring a noisy guitar solo by Green on Red's Chuck Prophet, both suggesting that the lost loved one has been killed in a war…4,5/5

This new Steve Miller Band Complete Greatest Hits disk was released to replace the two previous "Greatest Hits" compact disks. Essential radio favorites like "Rock 'N' Me", "Take The Money And Run", "The Joker", "Fly Like An Eagle", "Jet Airliner", "Jungle Love" and Swingtown" are all included.

He could sing like a girl, and he could sing like a frog. That latter trademark croak, utilized to the max on his 1956 debut smash "Ain't Got No Home," earned good-natured Clarence Henry his nickname and jump-started a rewarding career that endured for over 40 years around the Crescent City.

If you're a fan of the Cookies, Goffin & King, or the Brill Buildings' songwriters, you'll find this CD essential; if not, this disc isn't for you. It's a piece of nostalgia, definitive, but it's not for everyone.