Epic's The Essential Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble gathers two discs' worth of the late blues guitarist's work, including many live performances and a few tracks with the Vaughan Brothers. The collection presents Vaughan's material in roughly chronological order, from the 1980 live recording "Shake for Me" to 1989's "Life by the Drop." It also touches on most of Vaughan's definitive songs and performances, including "Tightrope," "Wall of Denial," "Couldn't Stand the Weather," and "Cold Shot," and live versions of "The Sky Is Crying," "Superstition," and "Rude Mood/Hide Away." Though this album doesn't offer anything that hasn't already been released in some form or another, it does go into slightly more depth than several of the other Stevie Ray Vaughan retrospectives by presenting both his greatest studio hits and some of his best live work.

Legacy's second reissue of Texas Flood, the 1983 debut from Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, now expands the album to two CDs, adding a complete concert given at Ripley's Music Hall in Philadelphia on October 20, 1983, four months after the record was released. On the first disc, an early version of "Tin Pan Alley (aka Roughest Place in Town)" is added to the original album but that is the only carry-over from the 1999 expansion. That disc also had three live cuts, but those were taken from a different 1983 concert, so this 2013 30th Anniversary Edition offers something completely new: an entire radio broadcast featuring SRV and Double Trouble at the peak of their power.

Lightnin' Hopkins' plaintive, soft-rolling blues style is exemplified on "Let's Go Sit on the Lawn," "Just a Wristwatch on My Arm," "I'm a Crawling Black Snake," Willie Dixon's "My Babe," and others. Accompanied only by himself on guitar (and oh what a guitar he plays), Leonard Gaskin (bass), and Herb Lovelle (drums), Hopkins' seductive, intricate guitar picks and strums will dance around in your head long after this CD has played. His voice, which sounds like it's aged in Camels and Jim Beam, conveys his heartfelt sagas to the fullest. A prolific songwriter, Hopkins wrote every song except the Dixon tune.

For the 1963 album Goin' Away, Lightnin' Hopkins was backed by a spare rhythm section – bassist Leonard Gaskin and drummer Herb Lovelle – who managed to follow his ramshackle, instinctual sense of rhythm quite dexterously, giving Hopkins' skeletal guitar playing some muscle. Still, the spotlight remains Hopkins, who is in fine form here. There are no real classics here, but everything is solid, particularly "Stranger Here" and "You Better Stop Her," making it worth investigation by serious fans of Hopkins' classic material.

Johnny Copeland's tenure on Rounder Records was mostly productive. He made several albums that ranged from decent to very good, increased his audience and name recognition, and got better recording facilities and company support than at most times in his career. The 15 numbers on this anthology cover four Rounder sessions, and include competent renditions of familiar numbers. But what makes things special are the final three selections; these were part of Copeland's superb and unjustly underrated Bringin' It All Back Home album, recorded in Africa, which matched Texas shuffle licks with swaying, riveting African rhythms.

Similar to his first Shelter outing (Getting Ready), but with more of a rock feel. That's due as much to the material as the production. Besides covering tunes by Jimmy Rogers, Howlin' Wolf, and Elmore James, King tackles compositions by Leon Russell and, more unexpectedly, Bill Withers, Isaac Hayes-David Porter, and John Fogerty (whose "Lodi" is reworked into "Lowdown in Lodi"). King's own pen remained virtually in retirement, as he wrote only one of the album's tracks.

A delightfully eclectic program spotlighting nearly all of Gate's musical leanings – blues, jazz, country, even a hearty taste of "Louisiana Zydeco" – and a revealing glimpse of his multi-instrumental abilities: he plays guitar, violin, drums, and piano! There's a tender remake of the Chuck Willis R&B ballad and a funk-tinged update of "Got My Mojo Working," but everything else is from Brown's own pen.

Before Gate was able to rebuild a following stateside, he frequently toured Europe. He recorded the contents of this inexorably swinging set in France in 1973 with all-star backing by keyboardists Milt Buckner and Jay McShann, saxists Arnett Cobb and Hal Singer, among others. Brown indulges his passion for Louis Jordan by ripping through "Ain't That Just like a Woman" and "Ain't Nobody Here but Us Chickens" and exhibits his immaculate fretwork on the torrid title item.

The first impression made here is surprisingly not from the master's guitar, but from his vocal, the song itself more of a doo wop ballad than a gutbucket blues. The only kind of T-Bone still savored by European blues fans since the mad cow disease scare barely plays guitar at all as the song begins to unfold, casually wrapping his lips around the lines like a saloon singer with a couple of shots under his belt. But when the instrumental section starts and he begins playing guitar, that's when the listener knows for sure this isn't a Johnny Hartman record. I Want a Little Girl was originally recorded in the late '60s for release on another label, and is in some ways like some of the sides Hartman created for Impulse with small combos backing him, sometimes even featuring guitarists, although never with the edge exhibited by Walker…

An excellent set that brings together 28 early 50s recordings by T-Bone Walker - crucial sides that link together jazz and blues traditions, with incredible work on guitar that would go onto influence both genres tremendously. The fact that Walker became a huge influence on soul jazz guitarists like Billy Butler, George Freeman, and Wild Bill Jennings is probably not lost on Blue Note - who included the set here as the only non-jazz set in their 2LP 70s reissue series.

From pioneering guitar legends Blind Lemon Jefferson & Blind Willie Johnson to pre-blues songsters and field holler-inspired singers, the state of Texas has long played a key role in the evolution of the blues. This Rough Guide charts the many different facets to this incredibly rich and diverse of early blues genres.

The mid-to-late Sixties was a strange and difficult time for many Blues men - most were without contracts, forgotten and under-appreciated. Then the Blues boom happened (particularly in the UK) and many had their careers kick-started all over again. Freddie King was no exception. His last album had been for Federal in 1964, but with a new lease of life on the mighty Atlantic label, he produced two much revered LPs in rapid succession. The first was "Freddie King Is A Blues Master" released in 1969 on SD 9004 - and then this peach - "My Feeling For The Blues" on Cotillion SD 9016 released in early 1970.

ZZ Top's First Album may not be perfectly polished, but it does establish their sound, attitude, and quirks. Simply put, it's a dirty little blues-rock record, filled with fuzzy guitars, barrelhouse rhythms, dirty jokes, and Texan slang. They have a good, ballsy sound that hits at gut level, and if the record's not entirely satisfying, it's because they're still learning how to craft records – which means that they're still learning pacing as much as they're learning how to assemble a set of indelible material. Too much of this record glides by on its sound, without offering any true substance, but the tracks that really work – "(Somebody Else Been) Shaking Your Tree," "Backdoor Love Affair," "Brown Sugar," and "Goin' Down to Mexico," among them – show that from their very first record on, ZZ Top was that lil' ol' blues band from Texas.