Blues/Traditional

Eric Bibb and Needed Time: "Good Stuff" (Opus3) Should you find yourself at the Guinness Temple Bar Blues Festival this weekend, try to catch this American emigre who has made his home in Sweden but whose music reflects a sensitive and frequently beautiful understanding of the blues. As the title says, so the album is. Bibb shuns the heavy-handed electric approach in favour of a delicate acoustic sound, allowing his soft, intimate vocals to shine in the process. A Swedish blues band may sound like an unlikely proposition, but their playing is unhurried, tasteful and accomplished. Bibb's songs cover a range of styles, but all can survive under the country blues umbrella. He has been likened to Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal, and the latter gets a sleeve credit for "inspiring us all through the years". He has done a fine job. Joe Breen

Taj Mahal: "Senor Blues" (BMG) Another visitor to the Blues Festival this weekend, Taj Mahal remains one of the great exponents of what is known in American circles as real music. There is no snobbery in this man's catalogue; blues, folk, funk, reggae and more are all well within his musical compass. His is a journey which does not recognise limitations. If it's good, he's for it. This collection is a case in point: only two of the 13 tracks are his own compositions, but the way he burns his imprint on songs as diverse as Horace Silver's jazzy title track and Hank Williams's Mind Your Own Business makes them his own. There is much here to make your hips swivel, but none better than his raucous version of Delbert McClinton and John Barlow Jarvis's Having A Real Bad Day. The way he squeezes his vocal right to the edge of comic despair is simply a treat. Joe Breen

"The Legendary East Clare Fiddler, Paddy Canny" (Clo/IarChonnachta)

Paddy Canny is a major 20th-century stylist, now approaching his ninth decade. The profound concertina-like power of his early years may be absent, but the tone here is rich and uniquely distinctive. The left hand carries the deft, clipped rolls and drawn notes of his profoundly varied style. From the opening, personalised Sean sa Ceo the listener simply knows that this is a great album. If reels are the blues of traditional music, here one realises that this player has been vital to that definition. In these wonderful tracks there is both the intense nostalgia of a job of journey work, and a surprising, authoritative call to order for modern things so slightly deemed innovation. Fintan Vallely