Tracklist:
Cheap Machine
Better ; Better
Compromised Blues (A Spy Goodbye)
Silver Bird
Love Is a Hurt
Let the Night Begin
Traveling Light
Place of Our Own
Trembling Shadow
Who's Laughing Now?
UPC: 195269407704Label: Gitcha RecordsRelease Date: 5.29.26Format: CD
Three of today's deepest, most decorated acoustic blues masters reunite to summon ancestral spirits with songs both long remembered and newly created. Even as they step back in time, Guy Davis, Corey Harris and Alvin Youngblood Hart-who met at the 1996 Chicago Blues Festival and won ardent acclaim for their first True Blues project in 2013-prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that African American blues remains as vital and vibrant as ever. Recorded separately in Virginia, Mississippi and New York, these soul-stirring performances include a Jimmy Strother banjo song migrated to Piedmont-style guitar (Harris's "Fight On"), an inspired reworking of Elizabeth Cotten's "Shake Sugaree," reimagined as if Blind Willie McTell were playing the guitar (Davis's "Everything I Got Is Done In Pawn"), and the first Charley Patton song that Hart ever learned, "Screamin' and Hollerin'." Even the original compositions here are steeped in history, albeit personal history. Harris wrote "What's That I Smell?" with his time spent in New Orleans in mind-specifically, his nights playing in a joint called The Funky Butt. Davis laments the necessity of a life on the road, away from family, in the disarmingly confessional "See Me When You Can." And Hart drew inspiration from another great bluesman, his friend Henry Townsend (who died in 2006 at the age of 96), to write "If the Blues Was Money," which he performs here on a Sears Silvertone-branded 1950s Kay flat-top guitar. Raw, heartfelt and sounding absolutely nothing like a dusty museum piece, Fight On!: True Blues Vol. 2 is a loving celebration of shared music and friendship, a long-dreamed-about project that now, countless tours and conversations later finally arrives.
Tracklist:
We Are Almost Down to the Shore (Fight on)
Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues
See Me When You Can
What's That I Smell
If the Blues Was Money
Deep Sea Diver
I Belong to the Band
Highway 61
Everything I Got Is Done in Pawn
UPC: 823800290323Label: Yellow Dog RecordsRelease Date: 4.17.26Format: CD
Great artists take the pulse of their times. In his half-century as a street-level social observer and scaldingly honest songwriter, blues-rock's resilient icon Walter Trout has never told his fans what to think, how to feel, where to stand politically, or what to scrawl on their protest placards. But in an era when his home nation - and the wider world - is ripping at the seams over the battlelines of modern life, the iconic US bluesman's hard-rocking new album, Sign Of The Times, is the primal scream and pressure valve we all desperately need. "I wanted to convey the anger and angst going on in the world," explains the 74-year-old. "For me, writing these songs is therapy. They're not just about what's happening out there, but how it affects you in your head. Sign Of The Times just became the obvious title."
Tracklist:
Artificial
Blood on My Pillow
Sign of the Times
Mona Lisa Smile
Hurt No More
No Strings Attached
I Remember
Hightech Woman
Too Bad
1
Struggle to Believe
UPC: 8712725750475Label: ProvogueRelease Date: 9.5.25Format: CD
Tracklist:
It Keeps Raining
Bogey Man
Trouble in My Home
Times Are Getting Hard
Worry Blues
I Don't Know
I'm Mad
Night Latch
You're a Fool
Monday Woman
I Got to Go
Cruisin'
Would You, Baby
Late Again
Poison Ivy
Say Man
Come on Baby
Wow! I Feel So Good
Seventh Son
Lucinda
Knock on Wood
Got to Let You Go
I Gotta Go Now
Michell
I Don't Know
I Got to Have Her
Got to Have Some
Why Did It Happen to Me
Fannie Mae
Mean Mistreater
Early One Morning
Got to Have It
Beggar or Bandit
Life Could Be Miserable
I'm Tired
Lonely Blues
Willie's Blues
He Lied
Someday You Gotta Pay
Why Did It Happen to Me
I'm Mad at You
I Love My Baby
UPC: 824046359027Label: AcrobatRelease Date: 4.3.26Format: CD
Gillingham, England - The Zac Schulze Gang is excited to announce the upcoming release of Straight to It on September 26, 2025, via Ruf Records. Straight To It is a fitting title for the Zac Schulze Gang's debut studio album: the trio doesn't mess around with niceties, preferring to play the kind of blues-infused rock'n'roll that grabs your throat and doesn't let go. There's no doubt that their frontman, guitarist Zac Schulze, is a world-class shredder, playing with precision, speed, and passion, but the focus of the trio isn't his solos. The Zac Schulze Gang is an undeniable gang, a group unified by a flinty sensibility that adds an electrifying charge to their rock'n'roll. Zac Schulze rides the thunder generated by the rhythm section of his drummer brother Ben and bassist Ant Greenwell, the three combining to create a massive roar, all without losing sight of their songs. The blend of melody and muscle gives Straight To It a visceral kick. Branching away from the blues that provided the trio their initial inspiration, the Zac Schulze Gang opens the album with "The Rocker, " whose breathless hooks almost feel like a rallying call, and sustain that energy through the blitzkrieg rush of "High Roller." This hard edge is complemented by the bright power-pop of "Angeline" and "Betterland, " an alt-rock anthem that soars toward the skies. Even with these softer touches, the Zac Schulze Gang retains a rough-and-tumble attitude, evoking the slash-and-burn menace of Dr. Feelgood and the fiery humanity of Rory Gallagher."High Roller" finds Zac channeling the slash-and-burn style of Feelgood's guitarist Wilko Johnson, but it was Gallagher that inspired him to form his gang. During the early days of the Coronavirus Pandemic, he discovered footage of the Irish blues legend playing "Bullfrog Blues" on YouTube. Astounded, he brought the clip to Ben, who was also struck by the raw passion captured in the performance. By that point, the brothers were already part of the music scene centered in their hometown of Gillingham, Medway, Kent, in South England, playing a variety of styles as they cycled through different bands. Cutting their teeth on the DIY punk circuit that ran through Europe and the UK, Ben, Ant, and Zac became enamored of the idea of wielding that modern energy within the context of blues. After two years of gigging and woodshedding, the trio got their big break, fittingly enough, at Rory Gallagher's Tribute Festival in 2022, playing a set that helped push them into the thick of the UK Blues scene. Soon, the Zac Schulze Gang established a reputation as road warriors. By the middle of the decade, they played upwards of 250 gigs a year, touring throughout Europe and the UK, sometimes playing clubs, sometimes snagging prestigious gigs like opening for Eddie 9V, Samantha Fish, or a slot on Eric Clapton's Crossroads Festival in Los Angeles in 2023. All this hard work, combined with the 2023 EP Made of Three and 2024's Live and Loud, helped the band win the Best Emerging Blues Band at the UK Blues Awards in 2024. The following year, the UK Blues Awards named the group as Young Artist of the Year. Produced by longtime associate Ian Sadler, Straight to It finds the Zac Schulze Gang poised to break out of Britain's blues scene. They remain dedicated to amplifying tradition-witness "I Won't Do This Anymore, " a high-octane houserocker graced with greasy harmonica from Nigel Feist-but the record is proof that the trio are hardly revivalists pining for yesteryear: they're a dynamic, aggressive outfit that exists entirely in the now, making some of the most exciting rock'n'roll around.
Tracklist:
The Rocker
I Won't Do This Anymore
High Roller
Betterland
Runnin Dry
Angeline
Damaged Man
Back Again
Turning to Stone
Keep It Things Change
UPC: 710347132929Label: RufRelease Date: 1.23.26Format: CD
