Following his debut at London’s Southbank Centre aged 23, British pianist Alexander Soares has garnered a reputation as an artist whose performances have been acclaimed for their “huge intensity” (The Daily Telegraph) and “diamond clarity and authority” (BBC Radio 3). Since winning the Gold Medal in the prestigious Royal Overseas League Competition, he has regularly performed in major venues and festivals across the UK, Europe and the United States.

The interplay of jazz trumpet and flamenco guitar is the specialty of the quartet Rasgueo to the Greek guitarist Nikos Tsiachris and the Bavarian jazz trumpeter Martin Auer, and rarely found in the flamenco world. After her grandiose debut "Waterfall", the band's second string follows with "Echo", which also includes Diego Pineira on drums and Martin Lillich on double bass. Tsiachris, who has written all the pieces apart from editing the classic Asturias, is now an internationally renowned guitarist who has earned the title of "Top of the World" by Songlines magazine with his solo album »Alcance«. His pieces set personal stories and experiences tangible through the melodic playing of the solo instruments and entertained throughout the entire track of the album without voltage drop. Rasgueo combines flamenco and jazz into a unique and in every moment exciting and thrilling way.

With a career that goes back to the 1960s, Joe Louis Walker is one of trailblazers of the blues. The award-winning guitar slinger, vocalist and songwriter has played and recorded with everyone from Lightning Hopkins (who once threw him off the stage) to B.B. King to James Cotton. Walker has released 24 more albums and two DVDs and toured worldwide. He’s won four Blues Music Awards, including the 2010 Album Of The Year Award forBetween A Rock And A Hard Place, and has been nominated for 47 more.

While carrying the blues around the world, from the Equator to the Arctic Circle, Guy Davis came back with some fresh inspiration and new stories to tell. Kokomo Kidd, Guy's follow-up album to the hugely successful Juba Dance from 2013, finds the blues ambassador visiting fresh territory. It s a new beginning for me, he says, The first time I produced myself. What I m showing here is a side of me that s deep inside. It s needing air and light, and here it comes!

Chance encounters sometimes work out for the best: Mikael and Eve needed only a flyer and few clicks on Myspace to meet each other. Nine years later, after dozens of concerts, they release their second recording as a quartet: Looking Forward. From the start the two musicians found a very natural complexity. They engaged Magnus Bergström on bass and Johan Birgenius on drums (one of the most appreciated rhythm sections in Sweden) to create the quartet MEQ; an abbreviation of Mikael-Eve-Quartet.

You can’t miss Andy Frasco. The electric-shock hair. The megawatt charisma. The golden lungs, magic fingers and party-starting songs. When this twenty-something Californian bandleader takes to the stage with The U.N., you’ll get an adrenalin-shot of pure escapism. “We want people to be happy,” explains Andy of his musical mission statement. “To smile at their faults, love life for what it is, and follow the beat of your own drum.”

New blood. New beginnings. For Royal Southern Brotherhood, Don’t Look Back isn’t just an album title, but the attitude that drove the award-winning US band’s third release. Tracked at the iconic Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, with an all-guns-blazing new guitar lineup and production team, this is the sound of a band rolling with the punches and turning the page. The past year has seen seismic change for RSB. If you’ve read the rock press headlines, you’ll know that founder members Devon Allman and Mike Zito have now amicably departed to pursue their solo careers, following stellar contributions to 2012’s self-titled debut album, 2014’s HeartSoulBlood, and the tours that rocked twenty-plus countries across the planet.

“Soundcheck” is the sixteenth solo album by legendary rock guitarist Leslie West. It follows 2011’s critically acclaimed “Unusual Suspects”, which featured contributions from such accomplished guitarists and close friends as Billy Gibbons, Slash, Zakk Wylde, Steve Lukather and Joe Bonamassa, and 2013’s Still Climbing, which included blistering duets with the late, great Johnny Winter, Jonny Lang and Mark Tremonti.

If you want the true measure of a band, listen to them playing live. Without the smoke and mirrors of the studio, some artists flourish while others fold. Now in 2015, Songs From The Road, captures a dynamite set from a band that has made it their business to blow off the roof. “We get up onstage and we turn it on,” says Spin Doctors vocalist Chris Barron. “We play our hearts out.” Stop the man on the street and he might tell you the Spin Doctors are the zillion-selling legends behind hits like Two Princes and Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong. Ask a longer-term, harder-core fan, though, and they’ll remind you that Chris Barron, Aaron Comess (drums), Eric Schenkman (guitar) and Mark White (bass) came up playing for their lives on the sharp-end of the New York blues circuit. “Those blues clubs were our bread and butter in the late-’80s,” says Aaron, “and people loved that we stretched out and jammed out.”

The world turns. Fashions change. Bands rise and fall. But you can’t stop the boogie. Fifty years after Canned Heat was founded by blues scholars Bob ‘The Bear’ Hite and Alan ‘Blind Owl’ Wilson in Topanga Canyon, California, the West Coast legends just keep rolling on down the road. “We’re all amazed and thankful that we’re still here,” explain the band, “living our dreams of making a living doing what we all love. Playing the blues, travelling the world and giving a taste of the boogie to audiences everywhere.”

Houting, moaning, stomping, shuffling & hollering, Reverend Tall Tree plays original Blues & American Roots music in the tradition of Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Bo Diddley, and others. The band is headed by Reverend Tall Tree (also known as singer/songwriter Chris Pierce), who is an internationally acclaimed singer, songwriter and performer. In addition to his own headlining tours, he has opened worldwide shows and tours for such artists as B.B. King, Al Green, Toots and the Maytals, Seal, Aaron Neville, Beth Hart, Robert Cray, Blues Traveler and Jamie Cullum.

Ruf Records recording artist singer-guitarist Samantha Fish, will raise eyebrows with her third studio release, Wild Heart produced by Luther Dickinson (The North Mississippi Allstars/Black Crowes). With Samantha on guitars and Luther on various stringed instruments; they rounded out the lineup with Grammy Award-Winning Brady Blade (Emmylou Harris/Bob Dylan) on drums. Special guests include Lightnin Malcolm (guitar), Sharde Thomas (drums) and Memphis session singers Shontelle Norman-Beatty and Risse Norman. The result is a stunning representation of American roots music.

All or nothing. For Laurence Jones, it’s an easy choice. In recent times, the hotshot British bandleader has barely stopped for breath. There’s been the release of 2014’s all-conquering second album, Temptation. The triumphant Blues Caravan tour that saw him raise roofs across Europe. The auspicious nod to represent his country at this year’s European Blues Challenge, and the prospect if his performance at the Albert Hall for Lead Belly Fest in June. At this juncture, a less passionate artist might cool their heels and count their royalties. No chance. Saviour of the British blues scene is not a position for part-timers, and in 2015, Laurence is back with his stunning third album, What’s It Gonna Be.

Legendary Taino/Tuscarora singer Pura Fé, returns with her new album “Sacred Seed”. In November 2014, musician and singer Pura Fé Antonia Crescioni performed with 12 other musicians in a concert celebrating the launch of Nueva Onda Records at the Trianon Theater in Paris. Pura Fé is perhaps most well known as the founding member of the Indigenous women’s a cappela group Ulali, but she is an accomplished singer and an acclaimed songwriter in her own right. “Sacred Seed”, the lead single and title track from her new album, is a beautiful slice of Indigenous blues a celebration of ancestral memory, sacred stories, and cycles of renewal. Pura Fé’s vocals powerfully carry the stripped down tune into a piano and electric guitar-soaked haze of harmony. A soulful taste of things to come.

2013 album by the Gospel legends. Produced by Justin Vernon (Bon Iver, Kathleen Edwards), I'll Find a Way is a unique collaboration between one of popular music's longest-running acts and one of its fastest-rising stars. Known primarily for his work in the Indie and Folk realms, the Bon Iver frontman proved a perfect fit to work with the Blind Boys, exhibiting a deep knowledge and appreciation of Gospel music.