Nomad
While some of the songs on his two solo albums undoubtedly are blues, the music of Guitarlos (aka Carlos Daniel Ayala) is unclassifiable — so much of it falls into the rock ’n’ roll, country, boogie-woogie, swing, R&B, Cajun, doo-wop, soul and Tex-Mex domains, as well as grey areas between. Like the one-sheet says: “File under roots/Americana/blues.”
Sugar Hill
Landreth has been busy of late, reviving John Hiatt’s backing band The Goners; joining Gov’t Mule for their most recent live album/DVD; guesting on Jimmy Buffett’s newest album, “License to Chill”; and playing Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Festival, the prestigious Festival International de Jazz de Montreal and The New Orleans Jazz Fest last summer.
Skuntry/Dualtone
This is Gordon’s swan song, finished a few months before his death in July 2002 at the age of 74.
ATO
The North Mississippi Allstars have three fine albums of deliciously adulterated blues to their credit (four if you count their one-off 2001 project with John Medeski and Robert Randolph, an instrumental blues-gospel group called The Word). But those are all studio albums, and anybody lucky enough to score one of their shows online from sites such as bt.etree.org knows that these guys are even better live.
Funzalo Records
Discovering Tony Furtado is like finding out about one of your guitar heroes’ obscure influences — someone you’ve never heard of who’s been around for a while and plays to beat the devil.
