What separates James Morrison from fellow Brit singer/songwriters like James Blunt and Daniel Powter is his taste for soul. Sure, this may have been fostered in part by his fondness for Elton John -- whose presence is as inescapable in Morrison's music as it is in Blunt, Powter, or any number of modern-day pop troubadours -- but Morrison picks up on the splashy soul of John's middle-period, weaving in elements of Stevie Wonder and Van Morrison to create a retro-soul vibe that's more about the song than the groove. This is more true on Songs for You, Truths for Me than it was on his 2007 debut Undiscovered, as he piles on horn sections, sings with a gruff studied soulfulness, and even cribs from Van's "Crazy Love" on his own "Precious Love." All this soulman posturing can come across as a bit too earnest, but it does give Morrison a heft and measure of grit missing in the simpering Blunt, which lends Songs for You some pleasing sonic textures not all that dissimilar to John Mayer's Continuum, but Morrison isn't just about sound, he can construct good pop songs, especially when he goes for big, bright hooks, as he does on the '70s soul pastiche "Save Yourself" and "The Only Night," which recalls Elvis Costello in his Get Happy! phase. These talents kind of contradict the soul-baring promise of the album's title, but Morrison kind of drags when he gets into ballad territory, like the Nelly Furtado duet "Broken Strings." He's better on easy rolling numbers like "Please Don't Stop the Rain" or when he puts a bit of a kick in the tempo, as the energy accentuates his popcraft, which is more energetic, forceful -- and, yes, soulful -- than his peers, something that comes into sharp relief on this solid sophomore affair.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Originally released in December of 1963, Yesterday's Love Songs/Today's Blues was the eighth in a long series of albums Nancy Wilson was to make for Capitol Records over a period of 20 years. During that time, she became one of the label's most artistically and commercially successful artists. The album was also made during the time when major recording companies were turning out sessions featuring black female singers with a gospel and/or blues background, singing standards and pop hits backed by a large orchestra, usually with strings. Columbia Records had Aretha Franklin, Everest used Gloria Lynne, and Capitol, Nancy Wilson. Here, teamed with the Gerald Wilson Orchestra and his arrangements, Wilson wends her way through 17 standards and traditional pop songs with a good balance between ballads and up-tempo numbers. Wilson's aggregation is loaded with many of the day's top West Coast players. Trumpeters Al Porcino and Carmell Jones are especially prominent, with Jones soloing on "The Song Is You." Harold Land's tenor provides the backdrop for "Satin Doll." On the last four tracks, Wilson is accompanied by just a rhythm section featuring Wild Bill Davis on organ and Joe Pass on guitar. Wilson and Davis combine to do a swinging R&B-tinged "West Coast Blues" and "My Sweet Thing," the album's highlights. In between these two cuts is the cloying "Tell Me the Truth," originally issued on a 45 EP and aimed at the female teenaged market of the time.© Dave Nathan /TiVo

Wishing to escape the superstar expectations that sank Blind Faith before it was launched, Eric Clapton retreated with several sidemen from Delaney & Bonnie to record the material that would form Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. From these meager beginnings grew his greatest album. Duane Allman joined the band shortly after recording began, and his spectacular slide guitar pushed Clapton to new heights. Then again, Clapton may have gotten there without him, considering the emotional turmoil he was in during the recording. He was in hopeless, unrequited love with Pattie Boyd, the wife of his best friend, George Harrison, and that pain surges throughout Layla, especially on its epic title track. But what really makes Layla such a powerful record is that Clapton, ignoring the traditions that occasionally painted him into a corner, simply tears through these songs with burning, intense emotion. He makes standards like "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" and "Nobody Knows You (When You're Down and Out)" into his own, while his collaborations with Bobby Whitlock -- including "Any Day" and "Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad?" -- teem with passion. And, considering what a personal album Layla is, it's somewhat ironic that the lovely coda "Thorn Tree in the Garden" is a solo performance by Whitlock, and that the song sums up the entire album as well as "Layla" itself.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

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From its cover in, Lucinda Williams' Blessed stands out. It title is readily visible in color photographs of anonymous citizens holding handmade signs, yet her name appears nowhere but the spine. The songs on Blessed are equally jarring: they offer sophisticated changes in her lyric oeuvre, extending their reach beyond first-person narratives of unrequited love and loss. She adorns these new tomes with roots rock and blues melodies dynamically illustrated by Don Was' sure-handed production (with assistance from Eric Liljestrand and husband Tom Overby. Her voice is front and center, but Was pushes an edgy, tight backing band -- fueled by Greg Leisz's and Val McAllum's guitars and Rami Jaffee's B-3 -- to frame it in greasy, easy grooves. Some guests who appeared on 2008's Little Honey -- notably Matthew Sweet and Elvis Costello -- return here. Set opener "Buttercup" is a rollicking kiss-off to a former boyfriend in which Williams simply lays out the truth as she sees it amid a strident rock & roll cadence. The guitars swell and fade while the B-3 swirls around her voice and the low-end drums hammer her vocal accents home. On the overdriven "Seeing Black," written for the late Vic Chesnutt, Williams, buoyed by an uncharacteristically scorching guitar break from Costello, offers no judgment; she simply questions his spirit as she struggles to accept the loss. Acceptance is a key theme on Blessed; it's voiced in the languid country rock of "I Don't Know How You're Living," with its pledge of unconditional love and support, and in the rumbling, explosive "Awakening." (An extension of "Atonement" from World Without Tears). But there's a militancy that's insisted upon here: it testifies to the willingness and resilience of the human heart. "Soldier's Song," written from a serviceman's point of view in a war zone, juxtaposes home and the new place he finds himself standing. In the late-night blues of "Born to Be Loved" and in the garagey title track, Williams employs repetitive, poetic lyrics that could be chanted as well as sung; in her honeyed Louisiana drawl, however, they become as sensual as a sunset in late summer. The two love songs near the record's end alternately express raw need and abundance. The unabashed humility in pleading on "Convince Me" is signified by a Southern R&B groove. "Kiss Like Your Kiss" closes the set two cuts later -- in waltz time -- by expressing gratitude for the abundant romantic love her protagonist experiences. It's painted by washes of lilting guitars, strings, and vibes. Blessed is Williams' most focused recording since World Without Tears; it stands with it and her 1988 self-titled Rough Trade as one of her finest recordings to date. Its shift in lyric focus is amplified by the care and detail in the album's production and crackling energy. By deliberately shifting to a harder-edged roots rock sonic palette, Blessed moves Williams music down the road from the dead-end Americana ghetto without compromising her qualities as a songwriter or performer.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

James Hand sounds like the kind of guy who was playing hard honky tonk music in beer bars and roadhouses long before "Young Country" reared its ugly head and made his music unfashionable, and there's a good reason why -- he's been doing just that in a career that has spanned four decades. After all that time, Rounder Records finally took a chance on him and released Hand's first nationally distributed album, The Truth Will Set You Free, in 2006. While one can clearly hear hints of Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, Hank Thompson, and Johnny Horton in Hand's strong, lonesome voice and songs of broken hearts and hard living, he doesn't sound like he's trying to copy anyone so much as he's writing and performing in the style of these creative contemporaries, and at its best The Truth Will Set You Free plays like a country record that could have been made 40 years ago without suggesting this man is playing at being "retro." (He still has his day job as a horse trainer, which tells you plenty about his attitude towards the current state of Nashville.) "In the Corner, At the Table, By the Jukebox" is a brilliant evocation of the solace of a night at the bar, "If I Live Long Enough to Heal" suggests Hand clearly remembers his last broken heart, and "Little Bitty Slip" is a rollicking tale of the hard work of keeping a happy home. While the production by multi-instrumentalist Lloyd Maines and Ray Benson (of Asleep at the Wheel) is sometimes a shade too clean for the material, the performances are spot-on, and Hand truly delivers the goods on all 12 cuts -- it's stretching the truth to say he's the last of the great honky tonk men, but The Truth Will Set You Free shows there are still some real country singers and songwriters out there playing it raw and real and waiting to be heard, and Hand's soulful, heartfelt music is a joy to hear.© Mark Deming /TiVo

With his sixth album, Gregory Porter excels once again in perfectly blending jazz, soul, rhythm'n'blues, pop and gospel. In addition to being blessed with a voice of pure velvet (so cliché, but so true), the Californian, who knows Great Black Music inside out, is also a real wordsmith. In these troubled times, Gregory Porter's music refreshes and rejuvenates, like on "Revival Song," a sort of neo-gospel hymn that ignites the soul and frees the body. This sense of wellbeing can also be felt when Porter puts on his crooner hat on "If Love Is Overrated" or when he channels his inner Marvin Gaye and George Benson on "Faith In Love." Brilliantly produced by Troy Miller (Laura Mvula, Jamie Cullum, Emili Sandé), All Rise propels the American singer towards greater global recognition, reaching audiences well outside the jazz sphere. © Max Dembo/Qobuz

Seasoned purveyors of arena rock for the socially disengaged, Holland's Within Temptation have been carrying the symphonic goth metal torch far longer than contemporaries like Epica, Leaves Eyes, and Evanescence. That experience shines through the manufactured gloom on Black Symphony, a live CD/DVD recorded at Rotterdam's Ahoy Arena with a 60-piece orchestra, 20-voice classical choir, circus performers, and enough pyrotechnics to knock the Moon out of orbit. Like any orchestral metal outfit worth its salt, the band kicks things off with an ELO-meets-The Lord of the Rings-inspired "Ouverture" that seamlessly runs into the group's 2005 hit, "Jillian (I'd Give My Heart)," before descending into a set that relies almost entirely on material from 2007's Heart of Everything. It's as big, ballsy, theatrical, and overly melodramatic as one would expect (Life of Agony's Keith Caputo reprises his studio role on the delightfully over the top "What Have You Done"), but it's executed perfectly, as evidenced by the 10,000 screaming fans who were lucky enough to sell the show out.© James Christopher Monger /TiVo

With his sixth album, Gregory Porter excels once again in perfectly blending jazz, soul, rhythm'n'blues, pop and gospel. In addition to being blessed with a voice of pure velvet (so cliché, but so true), the Californian, who knows Great Black Music inside out, is also a real wordsmith. In these troubled times, Gregory Porter's music refreshes and rejuvenates, like on "Revival Song," a sort of neo-gospel hymn that ignites the soul and frees the body. This sense of wellbeing can also be felt when Porter puts on his crooner hat on "If Love Is Overrated" or when he channels his inner Marvin Gaye and George Benson on "Faith In Love." Brilliantly produced by Troy Miller (Laura Mvula, Jamie Cullum, Emili Sandé), All Rise propels the American singer towards greater global recognition, reaching audiences well outside the jazz sphere. © Max Dembo/Qobuz