Blues and Beyond is a compilation box set assembling various recordings from legendary Northern Irish singer/songwriter and blues guitarist Gary Moore. The collection features previously unheard material as well as live renditions of the hits "Still Got the Blues" and "Parisienne Walkways." I Can't Wait Until Tomorrow, an authorized biography written by music journalist Harry Shapiro, is also included.© Rob Wacey /TiVo

Play or Die is inarguably the most obscure release in Tony Williams' catalog. During the early part of 1980, the drummer had been touring Europe with a quartet that was disintegrating. In order to complete their tour, keyboardist Tom Grant suggested Williams hire bassist Patrick O'Hearn, who had concluded his tenure with Frank Zappa but hadn't yet joined Missing Persons. Williams hired him. They played successful dates wherein they created and honed some of the material here. In May, the trio entered a Stuttgart studio and recorded and mixed these tracks in two days before heading back out on the road. Play or Die 500 vinyl copies were pressed and forgotten. Germany's M.I.G. Music worked in cooperation with Colleen Williams, his widow, to issue a completely remastered edition of Play or Die from the original masters. Williams, well-known for his musical restlessness, especially with his ever-evolving Lifetime bands, saw this date as an outlier himself. Its sound and style exist somewhere in the gauzy terrain between jazz fusion, new wave, and prog rock. O'Hearn's "Bach Ball Tango," opens the set with slow, zig-zagging bassline effects laying down the vamp amid fluid runs on electric piano as the drummer lays down an implied beat and syncopates around them. Synth creeps in overlaid atop the bass and piano, but the tempo remains languid despite Williams' clattering double time improv. His trademark frenetically rolling tom-toms and punchy kick drum introduce "Spencer Tracy," the set's longest cut. The bassist lays down a distorted vamp as synth, organ, and electric piano enter in layers as the drummer invents with kinetic, rumbling, and grooving improvisation. Later, O'Hearn duels with Williams and Grant paints the backdrop with cascading chordal figures before embarking on a Rhodes solo at once charging and spectral before introducing a wildly creative solo by the drummer before the vamp returns. The intro to "The Big Man" walks a loopy, occasionally jagged line between Devo and Jan Hammer. The piano comps as drums and bass syncopate in the backdrop to ground it before Grant takes off with a melodic, jaunty solo. "Para Oriente" frames funky Latin jazz inside fusion and rock cadences driven by Williams' snare groove and O'Hearn's knotty bassline. Grant delivers lyric interludes atop and inside his chordal vamp as the tune moves through fusion, funk, and Latin-style rock with a majestic middle eight before returning to the theme. Closer "Lawra (There Comes A Time)" closes the set. An earlier version appeared on Ego, and drew critical ire for Williams' reedy, untrained vocal and clumsy lyrics. That said, it's better here: his vocal is almost resonant as it closes the gap between jazz and R&B with glorious Rhodes-playing by Grant and a killer solo by the drummer. While Play or Die is for hardcore fans, it does offer often compelling evidence of the mercurial shifting between popular music genres in 1980. Williams was historically unafraid of change, and here he embraced it. © Thom Jurek /TiVo

Apparently disappointed with critical hatred of their previous work, Poison made a bid to be taken seriously after the massive success of Open Up and Say...Ahh! Even the title of Flesh & Blood indicates a desire for more substance and reality in their music, as do darker songs like "Valley of Lost Souls," "(Flesh & Blood) Sacrifice," "Life Loves a Tragedy," and a more reflective power ballad, "Life Goes On." There's still the adolescent sleaze of the Top Five hit "Unskinny Bop," but for the most part, Poison shies away from party anthems in favor of Bret Michaels' toughness-in-the-face-of-tribulation philosophizing. Sometimes it works surprisingly well, aided by the band's most consistent songwriting and a wider musical range that occasionally veers into swampy blues-rock. At other times, though, Michaels comes off as well intentioned but too self-consciously proud of his own ambition to recognize when he oversteps his bounds, as on parts of the hit ballad "Something to Believe In." Compared to their earlier output, Flesh & Blood is by no means a bad album (especially with the presence of one of their best songs, "Ride the Wind," an ode to motorcycles and their surrounding lifestyle). It's just not what Poison does best.© Steve Huey /TiVo

The posthumously released all-star Jeff Golub benefit album, The Vault, brings together reworked and previously unreleased versions of songs the guitarist recorded prior to being diagnosed with the rare brain disease progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) in 2014. A debilitating condition, PSP robbed Golub of his eyesight and left the adept, genre-bending blues and jazz musician unable to play his guitar. Tragically, complications from the disease also led to his death in January 2015. Prior to his passing, however, several of Golub's longtime friends and collaborators, including trumpeter Rick Braun, music executive Bud Harner, and producer/engineer Steven Miller, assisted Golub in compiling these tracks. Golub then handpicked many of his favorite artists to add their own contemporary style to the recordings and create something fresh. Although many of the songs on The Vault, such as "Funky Is as Funky Does," off 1994's Avenue Blue and "Groanin'," off 1999's Out of the Blue, will be familiar to Golub's longtime fans, these are not the same tracks featured on the original albums. On the contrary, these are alternate versions reworked with newly recorded additions from such artists as Dave Koz, Mindi Abair, Kirk Whalum, Boney James, Jeff Lorber, Gerald Albright, Peter White, Richard Elliot, and others. Released on the heels of a live benefit concert held in New York City to raise funds to pay for Golub's expenses, proceeds from sales of The Vault also go to Golub's family. Ultimately, The Vault works as both a farewell from Golub and a soulful, uplifting tribute to his musical gifts. © Matt Collar /TiVo

This album of snaky swamp rock is one of Ball's best recordings. Great choice of songs (she wrote 5 of the 13) that let her show all her talents, both vocally and instrumentally. Slow-tempo songs display the force of her voice, as in "I Still Love You," and another of the many gems, "For the Love of a Man." Meanwhile, the playfulness of the title cut and "The Right Tool for the Job" allow her to have fun and let the band air it out. Then there is the perfect song to end the disc and an absolute tour de force, Randy Newman's "Louisiana 1927." Ball has again assembled another top-notch cast of characters who more than hold up their end of the bargain. A few of the many who shine are George Rains on drums, Mark Kazanoff, who does double duty as a co-producer and excels on various saxes, and Derek O'Brien, who also co-produced and shares much of the guitar work with Steve Williams. If you don't know Marcia Ball, this is a fantastic introduction, and if you liked her past work this is a gem you won't want to miss.© Bob Gottlieb /TiVo

"...Lively yet not excessively stimulating, sweet without being saccharine, remarkably consistent but never boring..."© TiVo