Homesick for the Road provides a showcase for three fine blues singer/guitarists. The recording is clean and crisp, as is typical of the Telarc label, and the music cooks from start to finish. This disc provides an excellent introduction to each performer, with ample opportunities for each to shine. Debbie Davies brings to mind Bonnie Raitt, with her appealing vocal timbre and bluesy delivery. The youthful Benoit sings with an authority beyond his 31 years, making Screamin' Jay Hawkins' classic "I Put a Spell on You" his own. Kenny Neal has the scruffy, soulful delivery of a man who knows what the blues are all about. His "I've Been Mistreated" sounds like a late '60s slice of Muscle Shoals soul. All three of the co-leaders are excellent guitarists, and the band is solid and tight. Homesick for the Road rolls down the car window for an enticing look at three relatively young performers carrying the blues torch into the future.

Kenny Neal is such a terrific singer that he can make any kind of blues sound good. On Hoodoo Moon, Neal does the Delta blues justice on a version of Elmore James's "It Hurts Me Too," and does a fine job on the Chicago blues with "I'm a Blues Man." He even pulls off some James Brown funk on "Just One Step." Nonetheless, Neal makes his most valuable contributions when he allows his Louisiana roots to show. On "Don't Fix Our Love," for example, Neal lays his blues-harmonica solo and gravelly vocal over a New Orleans second-line parade rhythm. Lucky Peterson plays the Professor Longhair-like piano part expertly and does the same with the Fats Domino-like piano triplets on "Why Should I Stay." "The Real Thing" and the album's title track boast the slippery shuffle beat of upstate Louisiana's swamp blues.

Son of Louisiana bluesman Raful Neal, young Kenny had some big shoes to fill, but he's been more than up to the task. He plays bass, guitar, trumpet, piano and guitar, and worked in Toronto with the Downchild Blues Band as well as with his siblings in the Neal Brothers Band before returning to Louisiana in 1987 to cut his debut, Bio on the Bayou. Since then Neal has continued to blend his swampy roots with soul and R&B to put his own contemporary spin on the blues. Let Life Flow finds the 50-year-old bluesman in fine voice delivering four originals and seven covers. Neal accents "Louisiana Stew" with a long, jaunty, country flavored harp solo, while on "Fly Away" he drops a bit of sage spiritual advice into the mix. His Memphis-style guitar fills accent the tune, but it's his gospel drenched vocals that standout.

Tab Benoit's funky, ragged blend of Louisiana swamp blues and East Texas guitar, with hints of funk, soul, and country thrown in to give the gumbo just the right spice, has served him well since he burst on the scene in the early '90s. Since Benoit hasn't essentially changed his sound since, this collection of sides made up largely from his early releases for Houston-based Justice Records (all of Benoit's Justice albums have been reissued by Vanguard Records in recent years) makes an ideal introduction to what this guy is all about, and although Best of the Bayou Blues covers a five-year span from 1992 to 1997, the tracks all fall together in a completely coherent sequence. Opening with the Benoit original "Voodoo on the Bayou" from 1992's Nice & Warm and running through several originals and some interesting covers (including country-funk takes on Hank Williams' "Jambalaya" and Willie Nelson's "Rainy Day Blues"), this set spotlights Benoit's southern Louisiana take on contemporary blues.

The multitalented Kenny Neal offers up a real treat with Bayou Blood, which features mostly original songs seasoned with a very few covers. Neal's guitar work is excellent and his smoky voice is a pleasure, but it's his harp playing that really shines, especially on "Howling at the Moon" and "Big City Ways." There's plenty of variety, from the fast-paced shuffle of "Right Train, Wrong Track" to the slower, attitudinal "Gonna Put You out of My Misery" to the smooth "Smoke Signals." "That Knife Don't Cut No More," "Do I Have to Go That Far?" and the title track are especially memorable, and a tasty cover of "You Ain't Foolin' Me" closes this album with style.

Backed by a punchy horn section and sizzling rhythms, Neal didn't suffer from any sophomore jinx. Between Neal, his bass-playing co-producer Bob Greenlee, and drummer Jim Payne, there's some very crafty songwriting going on here – "Any Fool Will Do," "Bad Check," and "Can't Have Your Cake (And Eat It Too)" are among the standouts.

A sort of a sequel to Gatemouth's 1974 Cajun country & western cowboy album Down South in the Bayou Country, the originally issued Bogalusa Boogie Man consists of 12 tracks performed in more or less that same vein. "Bogalusa Boogie Man" was recorded in Bogalusa, LA, during March of 1975, almost exactly one year after Bayou Country. Material for this project was composed by Danny Morrison, Red Lane, Hoyt Garrick, David Craig, Jerry Hubbard, Pat Rush, Fred Martin, and Little Feat founder Lowell George, whose "Dixie Chicken" features "vocals by everyone around in the studio, including friends and neighbors and the one and only Woody Lee Lewis." George is said to have singled out this version as his all-time favorite.

Revered as one of the originators of swamp rock, Tony Joe White has recast a number of his classic songs on Deep Cuts, proving that time has no jurisdiction over funky. His signature groove, starting from his 1969 hit "Polk Salad Annie," is what he uses to paint a vivid picture of the world he experienced growing up, where poverty provided unity between otherwise divided races and bad-news women were sometimes too good to pass up. Tony Joe cut the tracks with his son Jody providing a rich palette of beats and loops, utilizing both digital and live drums, strings, organs, and the unmistakable timbre of his guitar. White's time-worn baritone is positively haunting, like a restless spirit conjured by the funk that was always the core of his music.

The debut release for the second-generation bayou blues guitarist/harpist, whose gruff-before-their-time vocals retain their swamp sensibility while assuming a bright contemporary feel that tabs him as a leading contender for future blues stardom.

This is Neal's third album for Telarc and it's definitely one of his best releases to date. He's long been known for his Louisiana blues groove, but this CD will force critics and fans to reassess their take on Neal's sound. Tracks like "Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right," "Little Brother (Make a Way)," "I'm The Man Your Mama Told You About," "Loving on Borrowed Time," and "Deja Vu" are robust numbers that variously evince Chicago and Memphis influences, while the title track is a gorgeous bit of soul music that showcases Neal's mature voice. In fact, one of the major highlights of this collection is Neal's vocal work. He has become an exceptional blues singer, with a powerful and wonderfully nuanced voice. Add his excellent lead guitar work and make note of the fact that he wrote, or co-authored, nine of the 12 songs on this disc. The guy has become a multiple-threat bluesman and this album, in demonstrating that, has to be seen as a pivotal point in Neal's discography.

From his first appearance on the radar back at the turn of the century, when a handful of Danish blues pub-crawlers discovered a diamond in the rough on the circuit of Copenhagen, Thorbjorn Risager's meteoric rise has rarely allowed him the time to look back over his shoulder. Instead, for this critically acclaimed songwriter, once-in-a-generation singer, expressive guitarist, and bandleader of the mighty Black Tornado, it has been a career with his eyes fixed on the horizon, the next town, the next show, the next song, the next album. Comprising two volumes and 25 songs, representing the best of Risager's eleven studio and live albums to date, this compilation invites you to take the scenic route through the career of a fascinating modern bluesman.

The second album from this unusual blues-rock trio finds the band continuing to explore the borderlands between swamp boogie, funk, R&B, country, Delta blues, and Chicago blues, with consistently fruitful results. Operating without a bass player (vocalist Steve Marriner plays guitar, keyboards, and harmonica, while Tony D plays lead guitar and Matt Sobb plays drums), MonkeyJunk nevertheless generate a dark and thoroughly grounded groove – or perhaps one should say "grooves." "Right Now" is Texas-style funky blues, heavy on the wah-wah pedal; "Running in the Rain" is full-tilt barrelhouse blues with a strong R&B undertow; "With These Hands" is a lovely example of Muscle Shoals-style soul music…

You'll recognise the wonderful Steamy Windows (covered by good friend Tina Turner with TJW backing her) but the awesome opening track Tunica Motel which tells of Tony Joe's return to his blues roots sets the stage for the whole album. Tunica Motel has it all - strong hooks and TJW's strong songwriting which starts as a song about getting away from it all, and becomes, gradually, a gut-spilling account. "I'm so tired of fighting with myself…" confesses TJW. Later, when he's contemplating his musical direction, he "sees the ghost of Robert Johnson" and for me the line brings an involunatary tingle down my spine every time I hear it, which is often. Tony Joe is Back! In this album he reintroduces us to his warm Stratocaster blues in gorgeous tracks: Ain't Going Down This Time and You're Gonna Look in Blues. In some ways these marked a new sound that he'd develop on subsequent albums - moving us closer to his use of Spanish guitar.