Blues

New Arrivals

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    Blue Steel 44
     
    Playin With Flee
    Indie Rock the Good New Fashioned Way
    Blues: Memphis Blues
     
     
    Martin Cilia
     
    The Odd One Out - Backing Tracks
    The Backing Tracks for guitarists to play along with. "The Odd One Out" album is a diverse collection of songs and styles with plenty of variety from soaring bluesy rock to acoustic picking. It provides a good healthy dose of guitar playing.
    Blues: Guitar Blues
     
     
    Gamble N' Hoiseck
     
    Trial By Fire
    Acoustic heartfelt songs w/ hooky chorus, and some explosive guitar instrumentals, with some Ukulele trax!
    Blues: Guitar Blues
     
     
    David Gerald
     
    Hell and Back
    Debut CD from this Electric Blues guitar virtuoso.
    Blues: Electric Blues
     
     
    The Otis Jones Project
     
    Sexy June
    Blues: Texas Style
     
     
    Rick Osborne
     
    Ozziestew
    Blues: Guitar Blues
     
     
    PERCY SMITH
     
    BABY CAN I GET SOME
    The CD has many well known Bay Area Musicians on the tracks, and is sure to get any crowd on their feet and on the dance floor. This is not your typical blues CD floks. Percy Smith is uniquely set apart from the average Blues Artist. This music is danceable, and creative.
    Blues: Blues Vocals
     
     
    Aaron Spohr
     
    A Dreamer's Disease
    Fun, Groovy, Backyard BBQ....feels like summer all year long!
    Blues: Acoustic Blues
     
     
    Pablo de Tarso
     
    Mensajes
    latin rock
    Blues: Blues-Rock
     
     
    Little Smokey Smothers
     
    Chicago Blues Buddies
    It has now been almost fifty years since established Chicago guitarist Little Smokey Smothers began mentoring and befriending the young Elvin Bishop, who came to Chicago from Tulsa in 1960 looking for the blues.
    Blues: Chicago Style
     

    Top Albums

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    Art Pepper
    The Art History Project
    Soulful bop, blues, and lovesongs, inside, outside, wild, and sweet.
    Please see the link on the left for reviews. CD Baby is obviously struggling with the site revision and has made it impossible for people to read or add reviews. The New York Times, among others, have praised this album, READ ALL ABOUT IT. This three disc set, volume IV of the Unreleased Art Pepper series, sums up the intensity of feeling, the wit, rage, sensuality and daring, the moans of pain and shouts of celebration of the life Art shared with us -- in his book, "Straight Life, and always in his music. Coda: Widow's Taste is "nearly impeccable," and Art's playing on previous releases "rhapsodic, heartfelt, almost demonic, exhaustive." --Jack Chambers New York Times, in a feature article: Widow's Taste "captures the artist at a mesmerizing peak." --Fred Kaplan Audiophile Audition: "I have loved each of the Unreleased series, but I have to say that Vol. 3 is my favorite. Its combination of funky swinging blues combined with Art's lay-it-on-the-line blowing knocks me out. The sound is surprisingly good and kudos should go to Wayne Peet for a brilliant remastering job." --Jeff Krow In keeping with the goals of the Widow's Taste Unreleased Art series, two-thirds of the music here has never been released before. The program begins in 1950 (Art Pepper with Stan Kenton) and concludes with tracks from a previously unreleased New York gig, featuring Stanley Cowell, George Mraz, and Ben Riley, played just a couple of months before Pepper's June 1982 death, at age 56. Art Pepper played the most autobiographical instrumental music in the world. The 17 selections on the forthcoming Widow's Taste release, The Art History Project, describe the emotional and musical evolution of an artist as he reacted, always intensely, to the events of his own life and to the events of the music world in general.   The 3-CD set, lovingly compiled by the alto saxophonist's widow, Laurie Pepper, and set for release on June 23, includes a 20-page booklet filled with previously unpublished photographs as well as anecdotes, impressions, and information from her life with Art and from the book they wrote together, Straight Life. But the musical emphasis throughout is more on Art than on history. No track has been included purely for its historical value. Each performance is of good-to-excellent audio quality, all have been remastered by the truly masterly Wayne Peet, and together they embody the heights and depths Art felt and was able to convey. Disc 1. Pure Art is a story told by the young fellow who placed second only to Charlie Parker in the Down Beat polls, and who, by his own account, "musically, at least, had the world by the tail." That "at least" is typical Art Pepper. Nothing was ever was quite perfect enough. Nothing was ever quite right. He began to use drugs during this period, in an effort to escape the universal lack that prodded and plagued him. This disc is mostly "West Coast Jazz" with all its contrapuntal cleverness and loveliness -- though Art always gave it his own bright little edge of adrenaline so it never was lightweight. Many of the tunes are his originals. Sidemen here include Warne Marsh, Jack Sheldon, and Shorty Rogers "This music is sublime and really timeless," says Laurie.   Disc 2. Hard Art consists of mostly unreleased material from a rehearsal recorded at Contemporary Studios in 1964 a few weeks after Art's first release from San Quentin. It reveals his love for Coltrane and for the new sound of jazz. Art's songs still swing and have moments of lyricism, but he uses the license given him by freer musical conventions to express the grief, anger, and alienation he felt in the midst of serving what seemed like an only-occasionally-interrupted life sentence -- doing time in jails and prisons just for using drugs.    Disc 3. Consummate Art is just that. This is a narrative of reconciliation. In this music, most of which has never been released, Art embraces his past and his pain in music that is delicate, lively, and touching, and, at the same time, free: It rages and celebrates. The edge of desperation is still there, but Art has found a way to use it. He is again at the top of the jazz polls, respected and even adored, playing all over the world. He is "a knowing athlete, trained and poised" (Gary Giddins, Village Voice), who brought from deep inside the beauty of his own passion angst and glee and connected so unerringly with ours. He was "an architect of emotion" (John Litweiler, Chicago Sun-Times) who "played with controlled intensity, clean articulation, and a command of his instrument that make his virtuosity seem almost casual and easy" (John S. Wilson, New York Times).   The new set is an ideal companion piece to Art's book Straight Life and, like the other volumes in the Unreleased Art series, it is an instant collector's item. Each volume has been compiled by the partner who knew Art most completely, and in irreverent anecdotes she gives him to us whole, his music reverentially reproduced and packaged.   Laurie Pepper's Widow's Taste label was launched in 2006 in order to introduce Art to a generation who may not know how soulful jazz can be and to satisfy the blessedly insatiable desires of his knowledgeable fans. That this small record company remains in the black is thanks to those fans and to the overwhelming praise heaped on it:  
    Blues: Soul-Blues
     
    Richie Kotzen
    Peace Sign
    Blues: Blues-Rock
     
    Pamela Rose
    Wild Women Of Song: Great Gal Composers of the Jazz Era
    Blues: Jazzy Blues
     
    John Primer
    All Original
    Blues: Chicago Style
     
    Storyville
    Live at Antones
    Blues: Blues-Rock
     

    Editor's Picks

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      Artists You May Know

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      Art Pepper
      Art Pepper: Unreleased Art, Vol. 1 (Vol 1 is a 2 CD set)
      Blues: Dirty Blues
       
      The Devil Makes Three
      A Little Bit Faster And A Little Bit Worse
      Blues: Acoustic Blues
       
      Jeff Daniels
      Live and Unplugged To Benefit The Purple Rose Theatre
      Blues: Acoustic Blues
       
      Albert Collins with The David Brewer Band
      July 4th 1976 The Bicentennial Session
      Blues: Blues-Rock
       

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      Top Songs

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      1.
      Can't Find My Way Home
      Stuffy Shmitt
      Blues: Jazzy Blues
       
       
      2.
      Barbecue Shoes
      Blue House
      Blues: Electric Blues
       
       
      3.
      I'll Still Love You
      Ricky White
      Urban/R&B: Deep Soul
       
       
      4.
      Come Back Home (feat. Betty Padgett)
      Ricky White
      Urban/R&B: Deep Soul
       
       
      5.
      Down To the Bones
      Dave Keyes
      Blues: Rockin' Blues
       
       
      6.
      Slow Cooking on Hot
      Carolyn Kelly
      Blues: Classic Female Blues
       
       
      7.
      If You're Gonna Leave Me
      Carolyn Kelly
      Blues: Classic Female Blues
       
       
      8.
      BONUS TRACK Golden Voice Blues (live) (Gregor Hilden)
      Gregor Hilden
      Blues: Electric Blues
       
       
      9.
      Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
      Gregor Hilden
      Blues: Electric Blues
       
       
      10.
      Leave The Door Open
      SISTA MONICA
      Blues: Chicago Style