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Danny Brooks opens up his new record the same way Jack de Keyzer does, with a song called Are You Ready. Brooks’ doesn’t end in a question mark. Must be rhetorical. With road gravel in his epiglottis and promise in his heart, Brooks sings “Are you ready to have a good time of-down home Southern soul?” Sure, why not.
As the album title indicates, the tracks – 20 of them in all – were recorded in Mississippi, outside Jackson. Brooks and Lil Miss Debi (no relation to Miss Emily) identify as Texanadians. One imagines that gets them into all sorts of trouble when they have have to deal with immigration officials at the border.

Miss Emily Live at the Isabel Independent

Suddenly Miss Emily (Kingston’s Emily Fennell) is a veteran on the scene. When did that happen? She has sung her heart out, loud, for years, and yet she has snuck up on us.
Perhaps her potent new album, recorded at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts in her Kingston hometown, will turn some heads. The record more or less demands it. Miss Emily even wrote a letter. Does Canada’s public broadcaster take requests?

Save the Moonshine: The Moonshine Cafe in Oakville is an excellent venue for live music, and deserves some extra support during these tough times. Check out their GoFundMe campaign.We need live music venues to survive, run by people who love music and support musicians.

Toronto Blues Society is celebrating 25 years of Rez Bluez with a new pre-recorded live stream series taking place Friday nights at 8pm ET from September 25th throughout the fall. The events will air for free from Vancouver, Saskatchewan, Six Nations and Toronto on the TBS Facebook page.

Elvin Bishop and Charlie Musselwhite 100 Years of Blues Alligator Records

Nobody should look to veteran guitarist Elvin Bishop and old-timer harmonica blower Charlie Musselwhite for political blues music, nor should they. What they present on 100 Years of Blues, set to drop Sept. 25, is reliable entertainment of the front-porch, down-home, shoot-the-electric-breeze kind.

Fantastic Negrito Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? Cooking Vinyl/Warner

Though the title of the Oakland-bred bluesman Fantastic Negrito’s third album ends in a question mark, it’s more a reasonable suggestion than a question looking for an answer. Because if you’re not out of your mind these days, you’re probably not paying attention.
“All kind of things can happen in the world,” chants the artist who was born Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz, on the hand-clapped interlude Shigamabu Blues. Sure, all kinds of things can happen – we knew that. But all at the same time?

Brian Blain I’m Not Fifty Anymore Independent

Brian Blain was born Sept. 11, 1946. I’ll let the mathematics enthusiasts figure out his age, but Blain is old enough to know that there’s no sense putting out an album if one doesn’t have something worthwhile to say.
With I’m Not Fifty Anymore, Blain offers topical and occasionally personal middle-of-the-road blues in accessible, avuncular ways.

David Rotundo Band So Much Trouble Dreams We Share

The harp-blowing Canadian singer David Rotundo is associated with a happy kind of blues. His music jumps and jives, shakes and rattles, and almost always rolls. Maybe his smiled mood has something to do with wintering in Mexico, which is something he does.

Dione Taylor Spirits in the Water Matay Records
On an album of shimmering gospel and swampy Americana sounds, the chanteuse Dione Taylor has got those restless dropped-G blues. Take, for example, the existential questioning of Where I Belong, in which the Regina-born, church-raised singer is runnin’ and searchin’ and has to “keep on movin’.”

On the acoustic-slide-driven Down the Bloodline, the song’s protagonist is “runnin’ and runnin’ down the line.”
There’s a chugging, clapping Slim Harpo groove to Workin’. Taylor sings about cookin’, cleanin’ and “always dancin’ for the man.”

This month’s recommended listening by Greg Torrington, programmer of Stingray’s blues channels.