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Bluesman Walter Trout returns with a record a little different than his usual output. Survivor Blues is comprised exclusively of covers, and he has chosen to record mainly obscure, old blues songs rather than more well-known picks. The album follows 2017's We're All in This Together and features his take on Jimmy Dawkins' "Me, My Guitar and the Blues." ~ Bekki Bemrose

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For some years now, Barbara Hendricks has had the blues. The great soprano has sung Mozart, Haydn, Schubert and many others onstage in the world’s greatest opera houses. Despite all of this, she still loves coming back to this genre which has its roots in the songs of slaves and reflects their suffering and their hopes. On The Road to Freedom, Hendricks revisits traditional blues, soul and gospel songs that served as the soundtrack for civil rights struggles in America in the fifties and sixties, as well as gems written by Ry Cooder, Curtis Mayfield, J.B. Lenoir, Thomas A. Dorsey and many others. Paired with the soprano’s angelic voice, these classics are presented in a new light whilst all the while maintaining their natural charm. Intense. © Clotilde Maréchal/Qobuz.

After Memphis in 2013 and A Fool To Care in 2015, Boz Scaggs concludes his trilogy on American roots music with Out of the Blues. Properly charged with southern blues and soul, here is a preview of the music that has inspired him throughout his career. With − at his side − talents such as Ray Parker, Jr. and Arc Angels’ leaders, Charlie Sexton and Doyle Bramhall II, as well as Willie Weeks (bass), Jim Keltner (drums) and Jim Cox (keyboards). Ideal conditions to bring old blues back to life… Over the nine tracks, four were composed by Jack 'Applejack' Walroth, Scaggs’ former teammate, most notably on Memphis. For the rest, the album features Don Robey’s I’ve Just Got To Forget You, Neil Young’s On The Beach, and Jimmy Read’s Down In Virginia. Boz Scaggs seems to be particularly at ease when it comes to soak in an entire era. Sixties soul is indeed a part of Those Lies, but quite modern at the same time. Some noticeable similarities with James Hunter at times, but the American singer sets himself apart thanks to his unique voice, cementing his status as a bluesman. Gritty guitars and muddy blues, the harmonica riffs unwearyingly travel back and forth America. © Clara Bismuth/Qobuz

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Damn Right ! Who could disagree? Of course Buddy Guy has blues in the blood! The Chicago guitar legend is saying it loud on this album: The Blues Is Alive And Well! At 81 years old, he seems on better form than ever, and has a lot to teach the youth. This is a punkier, rockier bluesman than the present generation, who knows how to bring the blues to a white audience. Old fashioned? The accusation wouldn't offend Buddy Guy, who's just playing his guitar right. Here, the guitarist is discussing the blues with guests who have the stature to hold a conversation with him. Keith Richards and Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, Jeff Beck and James Bay feed his talent, and stay in perfect harmony with his genius. And what would be blues without talk of booze and old friends? On Cognac, Buddy Guy seems to shed twenty years when he evokes Muddy Waters. It's too late to sip a brandy with him, but now he's got Keith and others for company. Getting wasted in style, filling up on booze and the blues, dealing out a hand that can't ever end: that's the spirit of the blues. Beyond the music, there is a real discussion that starts between guitar riffs, piano chords and the singer's penetrating voice. Better than a trance, this is a stairway to the underworld opening up. And then there's such a captivating groove on The Blues Is Alive And Well. It's a grand declaration of love for the genre, which, through solitude, poverty and suffering, remains a faithful friend, a life-saver, an intimate journal. Perhaps the album should be seen as a kind of passing-onward of the blues to the generations to come. Blue No More gives a fair account of the idea. It's a duet where Buddy Guy is singing face-to-face with the Pearly Gates. It doesn't dampen his mood at all, through, because he knows that others down below will pick up his baton. And James Bay echoes his master's words back to him: "I won’t be blue no more". © Clara Bismuth/Qobuz

Buddy Guy begins his 2018 album, The Blues Is Alive and Well, by singing "a few good years is all I need right now," an acknowledgment that at 81 years old he's closer to the end of his life than he is to the beginning. This isn't the first time he's made such an admission. Eight years earlier, he opened up Living Proof with a boast that he was "74 Years Young," so his advancing years have been on his mind for a while, but The Blues Is Alive and Well is full of songs charged with mortality. The record is bookended by "A Few Good Years" and the mellow boogie "End of the Line," and Guy muses about "Somebody Up There" and wonders what will happen "When My Day Comes," all the while acknowledging he's "Old Fashioned." That's a lot of songs about life and death, but The Blues Is Alive and Well has a lot of songs in general -- a full 15, lasting well over an hour. This excessive length means there's a lot of room for levity, too, including James Bay sitting in for a duet on "Blue No More," Mick Jagger's wailing harp on "You Did the Crime," and, best of all, a showdown with Keith Richards and Jeff Beck on "Cognac." Guy has some good moments on his own, of course -- his guitar stings throughout and he can sell the house rocker "Guilty as Charged" with a vigor that belies his age -- but the emphasis on ruminative tunes feels a bit heavy-handed. Maybe that's why the album ends with "Milking Muther for Ya," a minute-long dirty joke that punctuates the moody vibes of "End of the Line." Its very presence suggests that Buddy Guy would rather live it up while he still has a few good years left. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

The Perfecto leather jacket is worn out, the leggings are torn and the hand disappears in a likely wet head of hair. No deception here, Danielle Nicole is through and through in the image of her music. With Cry No More, this tiger doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel of blues’n’soul but rather to hypnotise the crowds with catchy choruses and carnivorous growls. It must be said that the blues notes started flowing through her veins when her girlfriends from the sandbox were still playing with Barbie dolls. In the Nicole family, all members sing and play music. That’s it. Growing up in Kansas City, Missouri, Danielle performed on stage for the first time at the young age of twelve, already glorifying like no other Koko Taylor’s Never Trust A Man. Four years later, she was the lead singer in her father’s band, Little Eva and the Works. In 1999 she decided to start her own band, Fresh Brew, with a few old local musicians. But because family is at the core of her music, Danielle took her brothers Nick and Kris with her to Philadelphia. There their new band, Trampled Under Foot, quickly became a reference in its genre. She learnt the bass and quickly turned into a virtuoso. After thirteen years of Trampled Under Foot, Danielle Nicole decided on a solo career, releasing an EP and in 2015, a first solo album, Wolf Den, produced by Anders Osborne. Even more masterful, even more sensual, even more soulful, Cry No More is the even more album of an ambassador weary of a certain tradition, but whose gutsy singing makes each performance a musical oddity. And to make this 2018 cuvée even more powerful, she invited four formidable musicians: Luther Dickinson, Sonny Landreth, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Walter Trout. © Clotilde Maréchal/Qobuz

At first glance, it's tempting to consider Black Stone Cherry's Back to Blues EP a stopgap after the runaway success of 2016's Kentucky. That album landed in the Top 40 in the States, and at number five on the U.K.'s album charts, placed in the high reaches of streaming and download lists, and took them all across the globe on tour. Upon hearing this six-track set of classic blues covers, it becomes clear that the word "back" means that the blues has always been at the heart of BSC's sound. It also means "back" in the sense that blues were once a de rigueur, inseparable part of hard rock's history. Recorded at David Barrick's studio -- the same place where Kentucky was tracked -- these six songs were cut in two days to capture their immediacy and rawness as seen through the band's '70s-inspired hard attack. Set opener "Built for Comfort" penned by Willie Dixon (who wrote half the songs here) is closely associated with Howlin' Wolf. After a brief piano intro, the track becomes an exercise in writhing chug, with its enormous riff paving the way for swaggering, snaky boogie. The placement of a dirty, funky clavinet in the mix just behind the guitars and the rumbling one-note bassline are a nice touch, too. The weaving of swampy slide guitar and harmonica in Muddy Waters' "Champagne and Reefer" is followed by a hoary blues-metal vamp. Its groove is nasty and unbelievably heavy; it could almost pass for a BSC original. "Palace of the King" is one of Freddie King's anthem. Co-penned by Donald "Duck" Dunn and Leon Russell, the band's take is pure bombastic choogle, boasting razor-sharp lead guitar fills and a Bonnie Bramlett-esque backing female vocal chorus (courtesy of Andrea Tanaro). It takes stones to cover Dixon's "Hoochie Coochie Man" in the 21st century. BSC deliver it with relish as a slow-burning, metal boogie complete with quaking horns, Ben Wells' stinging guitar, and whomping kick drum. "Born Under a Bad Sign" was a hit for Albert King and is a staple in electric blues, having been covered by dozens of artists including Cream, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, and Rita Coolidge. BSC's homage to King acknowledges the Southern R&B at the tune's heart (it was composed by Booker T. Jones and William Bell) but owes as much to Free and Humble Pie in its presentation as King's scorching blues. Funky horn breaks shore up Chris Robertson's growling vocal while massive hard-rock riffing claims the foreground. Dixon's "I Want to Be loved" is done roadhouse style. Its stomp and whomp are all raucous joy set alight by screaming, house-rocking guitars, a pounding Otis Spann-esque piano, and squalling harmonica. Back to Blues doesn't come off as a stopgap at all; it puts on a peacock's display of all of BSC's strengths while offering a fresh take on the music that inspired generations of rockers. ~ Thom Jurek