These ten acoustic tunes cut by Buddy Guy on 6 and 12 string guitar, and Junior Wells on harmonica back in 1981 during a visit to Sysmo Studios in Paris, France states the case for the acoustic blues as well as any album I can think of, but if you’re not into the genre, don’t expect this reissue to pull you around. Well, take that back: the sound may drag you in.

Sad but true: a generation of white Americans first came to know the blues—a black American art form—by hearing it played second-hand thanks to the dedication of die-hard British blues enthusiasts like Long John Baldry, John Mayall, Eric Clapton, and of course, Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green. The list goes on.



These guys were the purists. The second wave delivered up a highly modified version of the blues via Led Zeppelin, Humble Pie and the other British “heavy” groups that used the blues to launch a more aggressive musical attack.

For some reason, audio enthusiasts have a need to latch onto female vocalists with a passion that borders on the fanatical. Once they find her, they never let go. The careers of Amanda McBroom, Jennifer Warnes, Diana Krall and Janis Ian have all benefited from this compulsive/obsessive behavior. I have nothing against it. I just find it fascinating.

Daniel Lanois begins this instrumental excursion with a great wash of flanged psychedelic backwash, ribbed with pedal steel guitar in an upward thrust of musical birth that oozes from the speakers like sonic Cool-Whip.

That fades into a murky underwater cavern splashed by the shimmering light of the great jazz drummer Brian Blade. The Louisiana native has worked with Lanois before as well as with Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Wayne Shorter and many other musicians in both jazz and rock.

Analogue Productions’ third series of limited edition 45rpm 180 gram “twofers” will surely be as popular as the first two sets, with key titles selling out and fetching big bucks on the used market. The musically well-balanced offerings from the Riverside, Pablo and Prestige catalogs controlled by Fantasy Records include The Tony Bennett Bill Evans Album, Bill Evans’ How My Heart Sings and Interplay, Miles Davis’s Workin’ and many other long sought after jazz and blues titles.

As on Money Jungle, a United Artists release recently reissued by Classic and reviewed on this site, this record puts Duke Ellington in a rare trio setting, this time with the percussive anchor Sam Woodyard on drums and Aaron Bell on bass—the Ellington orchestra’s rhythm section.

For sound adventurers in the early days of stereo, no one’s musical arrangements fit the bill like Esquivel’s. They make Enoch Light’s close-miked percussive stuff on Command sound like punk-rock.



Esquivel brought a more colorful Latin sensibility to his souped-up for stereo arrangements, littering the soundstage with exotic percussion, electric guitars, flutes, xylophones, and spicy brass set to cha-cha and other steamy beats. Most of all though, Esquivel’s arrangements are most notable for the background singers, who sing “Zu, zu, zu” in place of the lyrics.