King, Chris Thomas - 2000 - Me, My Guitar And The Blues

On Me, My Guitar and the Blues, Chris Thomas King ventures out into eclectic musical territories. King sings and plays all the instruments on his first disc for the Blind Pig label. Recorded in New Orleans, this release retains some of those Crescent City funk influences while "Superstitious Blues," "Gambling Woman," and Robert Johnsons' "Stones in My Passway" are gritty acoustic delta blues. However, the majority of this release finds King reaching for a broader more popular approach that will likely turn off blues purists. "Born Under a Bad Sign" injects hip-hop into this blues classic, "You Are My Heaven" is comparable to the soul sound of Robert Cray, while the synth laden "Stay Just As You Are" would be the obvious pick for crossover radio play specifically going after a more mainstream pop audience.

		1		Why Blues	King	3:23
		2		Like Father, Like Son	King	4:43
		3		Superstitous Blues	King	3:56
		4		Cain	King	3:23
		5		Stay Just as You Are	King	4:32
		6		Born Under a Bad Sign	Bell, Jones	3:51
		7		Gambling Woman	King	2:35
		8		Me, My Guitar and the Blues	King	3:16
		9		Bourbon Street Blues	King	3:55
		10		Stones in My Passway	Johnson	3:46
		11		You Are My Heaven	King	4:59

¡Aquí!

Joplin, Janis - 1980 - Anthology (2CD)

Anthology is an adequate double-disc retrospective of Janis Joplin's years with Big Brother & the Holding Company and her solo career, containing most of her best-known songs and a selection of forgotten gems. It's a fine set, but the single-disc Greatest Hits is better suited for casual fans, and the box set Janis serves the needs of collectors much better than this, so the 1997 reissue of this double album is a little puzzling and unnecessary, even if it is an enjoyable listen.

		1		Piece of My Heart	Berns, Ragovoy	4:17
		2		Summertime	Gershwin, Heyward	4:01
		3		Maybe	Barrett	3:43
		4		Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)	Ragovoy, Taylor	4:01
		5		To Love Somebody	Gibb, Gibb	5:22
		6		Kozmic Blues	Joplin	4:22
		7		Turtle Blues	Joplin	4:25
		8		Oh, Sweet Mary	Joplin	4:19
		9		Little Girl Blue	Hart, Rodgers	3:51
		10		Trust Me	Womack	3:07
		11		Move Over	Joplin	3:43
		12		Half Moon	Hall	3:55
		13		Cry Baby	Berns, Ragovoy	4:00
		14		Me and Bobby McGee	Foster, Kristofferson	4:35
		15		Mercedes Benz	Joplin, McClure	1:49
		16		Down on Me		3:02
		17		Bye Bye Baby	St.John	3:47
		18		Get It While You Can	Ragovoy, Shuman	7:15
		19		Ball and Chain	Thornton	8:00

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Yardbirds - 1966 - Roger The Engineer

Once Jeff Beck joined the Yardbirds, the group began to explore uncharted territory, expanding their blues-rock into wild sonic permutations of psychedelia, Indian music, and avant-garde white noise. Each subsequent single displayed a new direction, one that expanded on the ideas of the previous single, so it would seem that Roger the Engineer -- Beck's first full album with the group and the band's first album of all-original material -- would have offered them the opportunity to fully explore their adventurous inclinations. Despite a handful of brilliant moments, Roger the Engineer falls short of expectations, partially because the band is reluctant to leave their blues roots behind and partially because they simply can't write a consistent set of songs. At their best on Roger, the Yardbirds strike a kinetic balance of blues-rock form and explosive psychedelia ("Lost Woman," "Over, Under Sideways, Down," "The Nazz Are Blue," "He's Always There," "Psycho Daisies"), but they can also bog down in silly Eastern drones (although "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" is a classic piece of menacing psychedelia) or blues tradition ("Jeff's Boogie" is a pointless guitar workout that doesn't even showcase Beck at his most imaginative). The result is an unfocused record that careens between the great and the merely adequate, but the Yardbirds always had a problem with consistency -- none of their early albums had the impact of the singles, and Roger the Engineer suffers from the same problem. Nevertheless, it is the Yardbirds' best individual studio album, offering some of their very best psychedelia, even if it doesn't rank among the great albums of its era.

		1		Lost Woman	Beck, Dreja, McCarty, Relf ...	3:12
Composed by: Beck, Dreja, McCarty, Relf, Samwell-Smith
		2		Over, Under, Sideways, Down	Beck, Dreja, McCarty, Relf ...	2:21
Composed by: Beck, Dreja, McCarty, Relf, Samwell-Smith
		3		The Nazz Are Blue	Beck	3:01
		4		I Can't Make Your Way	Dreja, McCarty, Relf ...	2:22
Composed by: Dreja, McCarty, Relf, Samwell-Smith
		5		Rack My Mind	Beck, Dreja, McCarty, Relf ...	3:12
Composed by: Beck, Dreja, McCarty, Relf, Samwell-Smith
		6		Farewell	McCarty, Relf, Samwell-Smith	1:28
		7		Hot House of Omagarashid	Beck, Dreja, McCarty, Relf ...	2:54
Composed by: Beck, Dreja, McCarty, Relf, Samwell-Smith
		8		Jeff's Boogie	Beck	1:44
		9		He's Always There	McCarty, Samwell-Smith	2:35
		10		Turn Into Earth	Beck, Dreja, McCarty, Relf ...	2:22
Composed by: Beck, Dreja, McCarty, Relf, Samwell-Smith
		11		What Do You Want	Beck, Dreja, McCarty, Relf ...	2:12
Composed by: Beck, Dreja, McCarty, Relf, Samwell-Smith
		12		Ever Since the World Began	Beck, Dreja, McCarty, Relf ...	3:03
Composed by: Beck, Dreja, McCarty, Relf, Samwell-Smith
		13		Psycho Daisies	Beck, Dreja, McCarty, Page, Relf	3:21
		14		Happenings Ten Years Time Ago	Beck, Dreja, McCarthy, Relf ...	2:05

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