This double-live album by the Derek Trucks Band may end up being the last for this version of the group – at least for a while. Trucks and wife Susan Tedeschi joined forces in 2010 as the Derek Trucks-Susan Tedeschi Band. Some of the players come from Trucks' organization: Kofi Burbridge and singer Mike Mattison with bassist Oteil Burbridge, and drummer J.J. Johnson, among others. Which brings us to Roadsongs. Recorded in support of 2009's Grammy-winning Already Free, this set contains over 100 minutes of music from across his recording career.

Long before he signed to Yep Roc in 2013, Tony Joe White perfected his minimalist groove – so much so, his records often seemed like they flowed from the same swamp. Bad Mouthin', his third record for Yep Roc since 2013, doesn't necessarily break from that tradition – from its first note, it is quite clearly the work of Tony Joe White – but it does prove a variation on his signature by offering his first album devoted entirely to the blues. Combining blues standards with songs he wrote years ago, White highlights how pivotal the skeletal shuffles of John Lee Hooker and Jimmy Reed were to his own sound.

It's hard to overestimate the impact Stevie Ray Vaughan's debut, Texas Flood, had upon its release in 1983. At that point, blues was no longer hip, the way it was in the '60s. Texas Flood changed all that, climbing into the Top 40 and spending over half a year on the charts, which was practically unheard of for a blues recording. Vaughan became a genuine star and, in doing so, sparked a revitalization of the blues. This was a monumental impact, but his critics claimed that, no matter how prodigious Vaughan's instrumental talents were, he didn't forge a distinctive voice; instead, he wore his influences on his sleeve, whether it was Albert King's pinched yet muscular soloing or Larry Davis' emotive singing.

Following the critical success of Ray Chen's solo album, Virtuoso, for which he received the prestigious 2011 German Echo Klassik Award, his new album, Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn Violin Concertos, is the young violinist's first concerto recording on the Sony Classical label. This release combines the Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn concertos, both of which have played a significant role in Ray's career so far. His superb performance of these works led to his triumph at two major violin competitions in 2008 he won the Yehudi Menuhin Competition performing the Mendelssohn Concerto, followed by the first prize in the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels a year later with the Tchaikovsky Concerto.

Josquin was one of the greatest composers of his time, the author of sacred and secular music and works for court and city. The ensemble Theleme and Jean-Christophe Groffe offer a bold and original interpretation of some of Josquin's songs. Combining the language of the Renaissance with very different sounds - ondes Martenot, Fender Rhodes piano, Buchla synthesizer - they create a lively and astonishingly fertile dialogue, in keeping with the spirit of the composer. Five hundred years after his death, this album pays tribute to a groundbreaking composer, whose innovations inspire us to this day.

Thuringia-born Johann Melchior Molter (1696-1765) is at best known as the composer who wrote some of the earliest concertos for the clarinet, which had just been invented at the time. Otherwise, the practical exploration of the oeuvre of the long-time Karlsruhe court kapellmeister is still in its early stages. In the highly acclaimed series 'Forgotten Treasures' at ARS PRODUKTION, Michael Alexander Willens and his Kolner Akademie present some of the concertos and orchestral works in first recordings, which once again make us take notice because of their above-average quality and remarkable inventiveness.

The award-winning Silesian quartet present a new album featuring two composers from Warsaw – Joachim Mendelson and Grażnya Bacewicz. After completing his music studies in Warsaw and Berlin, Joachim Mendelson moved to Paris in 1929, where he joined the Association des Jeunes Musiciens Polonais, a society founded in 1926 to facilitate the study, publication, and promotion of the works of young Polish composers. Bacewicz also received support from the Association, and from Paderewski, and studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. The associations’ aims included re-establishing a national musical life at the highest level back in Poland (after more than a century of joint occupation by Russia, Prussia, and Austria), and both composers returned to Warsaw and worked there until 1939.

The MDR Leipzig Radio Choir and its artistic director Philipp Ahmann present a collection of Felix Mendelssohn’s choral music, which arguably represents the pinnacle of German nineteenth-century religious music. Ranging across psalm settings, motets, Latin verses, the Deutsche Liturgie as well as the ethereal chorus Denn er hat seinen Engeln befohlen, which was later adapted and incorporated into his oratorio Elijah, the album highlights the unique stylistic range and expressive power of Mendelssohn’s choral output.

Born in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, Antoine Gosswin was recruited at a very young age by the Bavarian court chapel, where he was in frequent contact with Orlando di Lasso and accompanied the Emperor Maximilian II on his travels. Esteemed as a singer and composer, he was also part of the violin band employed by Duke Albert V at the legendary wedding of Prince William in 1568. Gosswin would go on to conduct the chapel of Prince Ernest, Bishop of Freising and later of Liège, to whom he dedicated his Newe teutsche Lieder. Extremely prolific, Gosswin produced several masses and motets as well as madrigals and German songs in which he continued the musical developments initiated by his master Lasso.

Lucky Peterson got his grounding in the blues from his father's friends, and since his father was blues guitarist and singer James Peterson, who also owned the Governor's Inn, a premier blues nightclub in Buffalo, New York, those friends included folks like Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, and Bill Doggett. Peterson had a career as a child prodigy on the Hammond B-3, even scoring an R&B hit with the Willie Dixon-produced "1-2-3-4," the novelty of it all landing him appearances on The Tonight Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, and others, and his debut album appeared in 1969. But it was the blues that claimed Peterson as an adult, by which time he was not only an accomplished piano and organ player, but also a quite competent vocalist and an impressive guitarist with a soaring and emotionally searing style on the instrument. This set finds him placed in a retro Chicago blues setting, with horns added in where appropriate, and Peterson is quite at home here, bringing an exuberant sincerity to the opener, "Proud to Love My Baby," and delivering the title tune, "Traveling Man," with passion and urgency, while bringing a funky groove to "Get on Down," which spotlights his piano playing.

After what had seemed like a promising start with "She Blinded Me With Science" in 1983, Thomas Dolby only charted with two other singles in the U.S. (though he had nine chart singles in his native U.K., 1981-1992). This 16-track compilation, embracing both his Capitol/EMI and Warner Bros. recordings, demonstrates that Dolby deserved better. His synthesizer-based songs are consistently catchy and clever, and especially notable are early songs like "Urges" and "Leipzig" that have not previously appeared on a U.S. album. "One of Our Submarines," Dolby's cover of Dan Hicks' "I Scare Myself," and "Hyperactive!" all hold up well. Some of the later (non-hit) material from the albums Aliens Ate My Buick and Astronauts & Heretics is less impressive; a better choice could have been made from those records. But for the most part, this is an efficient collection that justifies its name.

British Polygram TV's Greatest Hits is a fine 20-track collection that contains all of Kiss' best songs, from "Rock and Roll All Nite" and "Strutter" to "Beth," "Plaster Caster," and "Cold Gin," on one disc. For casual fans, this is likely all the Kiss they would need, even if it does contain a few odd selections.

This two-CD, 40-song set includes both sides of all 20 of the singles released by Johnny Cash on Sun through 1964. (Even though Cash left the label in 1958, Sun plundered its vaults for more Cash singles for about five years, with some of the 45s doing quite well on the country charts and denting the lower reaches of the pop ones.) This is really an excuse for a compilation that's more comprehensive than the usual greatest-hits set, but more affordable and digestible than the box sets of his Sun stuff. There's nothing wrong with that, either. It's well-packaged, the music is good to classic, and it's an excellent compromise for listeners who want a lot of Johnny Cash at Sun, but not everything.

Baritone Konstantin Krimmel, voted ‘Best Newcomer’ of the year at the 2023 Oper! Awards in Germany and a member of the eminent Bavarian State Opera company since 2021, presents his third recording for Alpha Classics. In close partnership with pianist Daniel Heide, he places his artistry and his feeling for words at the service of the lied repertory. This is also an opportunity to discover his vision of the work, an unexpectedly contemporary, socio-psychological analysis: ‘ Die schöne Müllerin is a work that romanticises the development of a mental illness, and shows, unfiltered, how a young person can feel without a tempered emotional world. With all its dark sides.’