2023 Blues Albums
Are you a fan of Blues music and looking for the latest albums to add to your collection? You’re in luck! We have collected all of the newest releases from across the genre and are here to showcase some awesome blues songs. These albums contain something for everyone passionate about this timeless style of music. With our list of recommendations, keep up with all the hottest new tracks out on the scene today. Get ready to experience a journey through today's best blues artists as we explore what each album has to offer.
More so than any other element, guitar picking skills are a crucial part of the genre’s appeal. Its best known practitioners from Muddy Waters to B.B. King to Jonny Lang are all gifted pickers and those who can’t cut the mustard on the six-stringer are likely to be left in the ash heap of forgotten blues men. The best that can be said of Syracuse, New York guitar whiz is that there is little chance of him winding up on that ash heap. But the worst that can be said is that his — unlike most axe-slinging blues legends — his vocals don’t quite live up to his playing.
There are moments where Riffin’ the Blue seems to be an experiment in testing how much one can compensate for a lackluster singing ability with great guitar chops. But thankfully, Cru makes his guitar playing the centerpiece of Riffin’ the Blue. There’s a reason why the album isn’t called Croonin’ the Blue. Standout tracks include the anthemic ‘Stand Up’ and the funk-laden ‘Heal My Misery.’
Eddie 9V’s unique sound is a joyful concoction that starts with the very best of 60s R & B and adds just enough bluesy spice to make him and his band stand out in a sea of Motown/Stax imitators
.
The opening track jolts us right in the heart, yanking us back to 1965. But the party only gets grittier, more intense and more soulful from there. The album is a foot-stomping good time of the highest order.
What makes Eddie 9 Volt’s chops all the more impressive is his youthfulness. Born in 1996, the prodigy has learned a lot in little time and he’s clearly spent a great deal of his time consuming, emulating and learning from the masters of his chosen genre. Song after song on Capricorn demonstrate just how much he has learned.
The album’s finest song is ‘It’s Going Down,’ a heartfelt, sensitive song that features the kind of lyrics and vocal delivery that a bluesman of Eddie’s age shouldn’t yet be able to offer. But like the rest of Capricorn, It’s a stunner. It only makes you wonder how much more this young talent has to give to the genre he loves so much.
Dubbed ‘The Reigning Queen of Beale Street,’ didn’t actually make it to the famed Memphis, Tennessee location until she took a trip there in the late 90s. Blue’s vocals don’t quite live up to the expectation that her title would suggest, but she’s got a fine enough style to offer homage to the greats.
Her cover of ‘Tell Mama’ — made famous by Etta James is fun and many other of the album’s cuts are worthy, but it's opener ‘The Shoals’ that is most likely to snag the listener’s attention and keep it.
‘The Shoals’ pays tribute to the many fine talents that have emerged from the legendary southern swamps and serves as a strong history lesson for those too young to recall the early days themselves.
Overall, ‘From the Shoals’ is far from a classic, but sometimes it’s enough to have a good time while remembering those who’ve made our favorite genre what it was and continues to be today.
Imagine a handful of friends hanging out on a porch with just enough whiskey in them to sing the blues, but not quite enough to pass out. That’s the sound conjured up by Walk that Walk. There’s no effort made here to reinvent the wheel that is the enduring genre of the blues. These guys only want to have lots of fun making music and invite the listener to join the party. The result of this approach is Big World of Trouble, a sometimes hard-rocking, sometimes easy-going folksy, always soulful blues album that catches our attention from the first chord and doesn’t relinquish it until the studio runs out of electricity.
The heavy funk number ‘Get Up Get Out’ is probably the strongest track on Big World of Trouble. With a menacing growl, the vocals get the hips shaking the feet moving in just the right way. But there’s more.
There’s the folksy ‘Roof Got a Hole,’ the song that kicks off this porch jam and sets the album’s tone perfectly.
And the party ends with a harmonica boogie called ‘Good Woman’ that will likely make any blues fan wonder why it took so long to discover these guys. Big World of trouble is perfect for any fan of the blues who’s wondering what happened to all the good time blues bands. Walk That Walk has just the answer they’ve been seeking. And it comes with a good groove too.
The latest album by veteran bluesman Joe Louis Walker has a title that suggests a heavy, deeply serious album of dark, weighty themes. True, Weight of the World is no stroll through a flower patch. But like any great blues, it is not just about enduring the bad times, it is about transcending them with the elegant power of catharsis.
The song that best embodies that catharsis is the album’s playful closer ‘You Got Me Whipped.’ It’s a simple love song, but it’s performed by somebody who’s lived a life of pain, sorrow and redemption. The lyrics don’t tell us his life story. They don’t have to. It all somehow comes out of Joe Louis Walker’s guitar. It’s every not he plays as well as every note he doesn’t play.
Another big winner here is the deeply spiritual ‘Is it a Matter of Time?’ Walker makes it clear that he doesn’t know the answer. But he doesn’t seem to care. There’s a depth to his blues that moves well beyond philosophical questions, and nobody understands that as profoundly as Joe Louis Walker. If you listen closely, you’ll understand it too. If not, you’ll at least hear a master bluesman at work.
