Etta James is the dues-paying blues mama. Throughout her tragic and storied career, Miss Peaches has successfully delivered her growling soul and soaring vocals to everything from Chicago blues to pop. Her voice is one of the most distinctive in the entire blues canon and The Essential Etta James captures it in its prime; 44 tracks cover her best Chess Records work from 1960 to the early '70s. And though her early R&B hits for Modern like Roll with Me Henry are not here, just about everything else is: the supreme balladry of All I Could Do Was Cry and At Last, the sassy bump of Seven-Day Fool and Pushover, the raucous soul of In the Basement, and even bell-bottomed funk of All the Way Down. But the finest evidence of James's versatility can be heard in her outstanding Memphis soul covers of Tell Mama and Security. There's a lot of Etta James out there, but this is likely the best compilation of her work you're going to find. -Ken Hohman.

This belated collection of Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company tracks features 14 performances, a dozen of which debut here. Of the two familiar selections, the version of "Ball and Chain" here is the same one that graces Cheap Thrills, and "Bye Bye Baby" can be heard on In Concert. No matter if it's not quite the definitive Big Brother album; it is nonetheless a hell of a lot of fun. Big Brother's playing is intense and relatively tight. A magnificent moment is heard in "I Need a Man to Love" when Joplin urges the band on. "C'mon boys, play," she prods, and a stunning Sam Andrews guitar solo ensues. If you've never heard Joplin do "Summertime," grab this album. If you have, grab it anyway. It's wonderful. -Myra Friedman.

On Without Warning, young Canadian blueswoman Sue Foley puts together the complete package: guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Her driving, syncopated guitar grooves are as vigorous as ever, but her tender, ingratiating voice has come forward in the mix as a crucial asset and her own compositions have increased from three out of 11 on her first album to eight out of 13 on this follow-up. Backed by her road rhythm section, Foley plays six of the cuts as a guitar trio, shifting with impressive authority between rhythm riffs and single-note leads. Even when joined by ex-Blaster pianist Gene Taylor, Austin organist Riley Osbourn, or duet singer Angela Strehli, Foley dominates the proceedings with a confidence that belies her outsider status as a young woman in an old man's game. -Geoffrey Himes On Without Warning, young Canadian blueswoman Sue Foley puts together the complete package: guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Her driving, syncopated guitar grooves are as vigorous as ever, but her tender, ingratiating voice has come forward in the mix as a crucial asset and her own compositions have increased from three out of 11 on her first album to eight out of 13 on this follow-up. Backed by her road rhythm section, Foley plays six of the cuts as a guitar trio, shifting with impressive authority between rhythm riffs and single-note leads. Even when joined by ex-Blaster pianist Gene Taylor, Austin organist Riley Osbourn, or duet singer Angela Strehli, Foley dominates the proceedings with a confidence that belies her outsider status as a young woman in an old man's game. -Geoffrey Himes.

Etta James, Ruth Brown, and Little Esther Phillips helped revolutionize American music with early-'50s rock & roll hits, but they grew up thinking of Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Dinah Washington as the ultimate in singing. As they got older, James, Brown, and Phillips all recorded pop standards in the style of their original heroes, but James made the most convincing transition from sock-hop shouter to cabaret crooner, culminating in her Grammy-winning album of Holiday songs, Mystery Lady. James continues this journey with Time After Time, a new collection of pop standards recorded with the same producer (John Snyder) and arranger (pianist Cedar Walton). In the liner notes, James acknowledges learning these songs from vocal models like Washington, Fitzgerald, Etta Jones, Jimmy Scott, Chet Baker, and Frank Sinatra, but James puts her own stamp on every one. Most of these are confessions of weakness by a lover in the throes of new infatuation or fresh heartbreak, but she injects such a feeling of strength into the vocals-both in the robustness of her timbre and in the determination of her attitude-that she gives these well-worn numbers a new spin. She may be dizzy right now, she seems to imply, but she will soon land on her feet. -Geoffrey Himes.

In 1961 jazz-backed blues seemed slack, almost nonexistent. Bebop, hard bop, tenor sax & organ combos, and the avant-garde were more relevant in the jazz world. And blues was veering toward an electrified, altogether different realm. So when Chris Albertson brought Alberta Hunter, Victoria Spivey, and Lucille Hegamin to the acclaimed Rudy Van Gelder's studio to capture songs from the era when jazz and blues melded together, the result could've easily sounded thinly nostalgic. But with a backing band that included pianist Willie "the Lion" Smith (on Hegamin's four tunes) and trombonist J. C. Higginbotham and clarinetist Buster Bailey (on the four tracks from both Hunter and Spivey), this session came out topnotch. It's redolent of an earlier era (specifically the early 1920s, when the three singers got their starts), but each of the tracks is potent with a deep, slow swing accentuating the peerless vocals. Spivey's grainy voice is impassioned and powerful, in the same way that Hunter's is unmistakable in its slight waver, carrying her sometimes near-spoken lines to the stars (especially as she delivers jewels like this: "I don't like those hepster lovers / They've got larceny in their eyes / They got a handful of gimme / And a mouthful of much obliged"). The acoustics are as sharp as any of Van Gelder's sessions, and the music is majestic. [+]