The story of award-winning vocalist Janiva Magness’ rise to the top of the blues world and beyond is a testament to the redemptive power of music and the human spirit. Possessing a rich, soulful voice and absolute command over her material, Magness is an incredibly gifted performer who can lead her audience through a range of emotions, from the deepest sorrow to overwhelming joy.

 Winner of the 2006 and 2007 Blues Music Awards for Best Contemporary Female Artist Of The Year, Magness has seven solo recordings to her credit and has made guest appearances on CDs by R.L. Burnside and many others. Her presence on stage is legendary, as she performs 200 nights a year at clubs, festivals, and concert halls all over the world. And, in April 2008, she traveled to Iraq and Kuwait co-headlining Bluzapalooza, the first-ever blues concert tour to perform for American troops. The story continues with her Alligator Records debut CD, What Love Will Do.

What Love Will Do, co-produced by Magness along with Dave Darling (Brian Setzer, Meredith Brooks, Dan Hicks), features 13 powerful songs, each imbued with Magness’ expressive emotional depth. Magness reaches heights only hinted at in her previous recordings, interpreting new material written especially for her and songs from Little Milton, Tina Turner, Bill Withers, Al Green, Candi Staton, Dorothy Moore and Marvin Gaye. Her impassioned singing takes each song from deep within her being and projects it out directly into the heart and soul of her audience, making What Love Will Do essential listening for blues, roots, rock and soul music lovers everywhere.

In addition to her musical accomplishments, Magness is also a National Spokesperson for Casey Family Programs, promoting National Foster Care Month. Magness has reconnected with her daughter, and is now the proud grandmother of a six-year-old boy. “I have a life today I never could have imagined,” says Magness. “The tragedies of my life no longer define me.”

What defines Janiva Magness is the strength, power and passion of her deeply soulful, emotionally moving music, sung with truth and soul-shaking talent. With What Love Will Do and a major tour, and with the stars seemingly all lined up for her, Janiva Magness continues to wring the truth from every note she sings, amazing and delighting both old and new fans all over the world.

http://www.janivamagness.com/

 Five-time W.C. Handy “Best Blues Instrumentalist - Piano” award nominee, Henry Butler knows no limitations. Although blinded by glaucoma since birth, Butler is also a world class photographer with his work displayed at exhibitions throughout the United States.

 Playing piano since the age of six, Butler is a master of musical diversity. Combining the percussive jazz piano playing of McCoy Tyner and the New Orleans style playing of Professor Longhair through his classically-trained wizardry, Butler continues to craft a sound uniquely his own. A rich amalgam of jazz, caribbean, classical, pop, R&B and blues influences, his music is as excitingly eclectic as that of his New Orleans birthplace.

His newest recording is "PianoNOLA" on Basin Street Records. Co-produced by George Winston, who produced Butler's "Orleans Inspiration", this disc is a collection of live solo performances that include several instrumentals as well his renditions of several blues and R&B classics.

http://www.henrybutler.com/

Eden Brent's piano playing and singing style ranges from a melancholic whisper to a full-blown juke joint holler. She's simultaneously confident and confiding, ably blending an earthy meld of jazz, blues, soul, and pop as she huskily invites listeners into her lazy, lush world.

That world lies just north of Greenville, Mississippi on the two-lane Highway 1, which follows the twists and turns of the river through fecund swampland, time-forgotten plantations, and blink-and-you'll-miss-`em communities like Rosedale, Beulah, and Stovall before it dead ends into Highway 61 just south of Onward.

It was there that Brent was able to develop her gutsy vocal-and-piano chops via family sing-a-longs and a 16-year apprenticeship with the late blues pioneer Boogaloo Ames, who ultimately dubbed his protégé "Little Boogaloo."

"Music school taught me to think, but Boogaloo taught me to boogie-woogie," says Brent, who appeared alongside her mentor in the 1999 PBS documentary Boogaloo & Eden: Sustaining the Sound and in the 2002 South African production Forty Days in the Delta.

Where most 21st century roots musicians merely emulate their heroes, Brent and Ames were both "soul mate and road buddies," says lifelong friend (and acclaimed journalist) Julia Reed. "She was a young white woman of privilege and he was an aging black man in the Mississippi Delta, but theirs is a phenomenal story of mutual admiration and need."

Yet much more than the blues flows through Brent's talented hands: Critics laud her "Bessie Smith meets Diana Krall meets Janis Joplin" attitude, compare her to jazz/pop dynamos Norah Jones and Sarah Vaughn, and wax effusively about her "whiskey-smoke" voice, which serves as a constant reminder that Greenville, nestled into a bend of the Mississippi River, is located a few hundred miles north of New Orleans.

Whether booked as a solo artist or bandleader, Brent's performance is fresh and spontaneous, often filled with audience requests and participation. Her unshakable talent and her carefree demeanor have taken her across the country and around the world, with appearances at the Kennedy Center, the 2000 Republican National Convention, the venerable Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, and tours of South Africa and Norway under her belt.

Since launching her career, she's won the Blues Foundation's 2006 International Blues Challenge, and was a 2004 inductee on the Greenville Blues Walk. Sharing a bill with B.B. King, Brent performed at the 2005 Presidential Inauguration, and solo, she's appeared at the British Embassy and at the My South celebration in New York. She's also burnished her reputation via appearances on the public radio program Beale Street Caravan, at festivals like the Waterfront Blues Festival, Edmonton Blues Festival and the annual B.B. King Homecoming, and aboard the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise.

With the 2008 release of her new album "Mississippi Number One", Brent is now ready to take her place as one of the fresh voices propelling this vital American music forward.

http://www.edenbrent.com/

Rock and Roll legend Bo Diddley passed away from heart failure at the age of 79. Widely acknowledged as the forefather of the mid-century rock revolution, Diddley has been credited as being responsible for inspiring numerous other rock gods of his era.

It's been "leeked" that his recognizable "cigar-box shaped" guitar would be featured in the "impending" Rock Band 2. Unfortunately, they're talking about an unlockable guitar actually inside the game, and not about any kind of bundled peripheral.

(Portland, OR) It was a fortuitous typo for the Fred Meyer retail chain. This spring, an employee intending to order a special CD-DVD edition of R.E.M.'s latest release "Accelerate" inadvertently entered the "LP" code instead. Soon boxes of the big, vinyl discs showed up at several stores.

Some sent them back. But a handful put them on the shelves, and 20 LPs sold the first day.

The Portland-based company, owned by The Kroger Co., realized the error might not be so bad after all. Fred Meyer is now testing vinyl sales at 60 of its stores in Oregon, Washington and Alaska. The company says, based on the response so far, it plans to roll out vinyl in July in all its stores that sell music.

Other mainstream retailers are giving vinyl a spin too. Best Buy is testing sales at some stores. And online music giant Amazon.com, which has sold vinyl for most of the 13 years it has been in business online, created a special vinyl-only section last fall.

The best-seller so far at Fred Meyer is The Beatles album "Abbey Road." But musicians from the White Stripes and the Foo Fighters to Metallica and Pink Floyd are selling well, the company says.

"It's not just a nostalgia thing," said Melinda Merrill, spokeswoman for Fred Meyer. "The response from customers has just been that they like it, they feel like it has a better sound."

According to the Recording Industry Association of America, manufacturers' shipments of LPs jumped more than 36 percent from 2006 to 2007 to more than 1.3 million. Shipments of CDs dropped more than 17 percent during the same period to 511 million, as they lost some ground to digital formats.

The resurgence of vinyl centers on a long-standing debate over analog versus digital sound. Digital recordings capture samples of sound and place them very close together as a complete package that sounds nearly identical to continuous sound to many people.

Analog recordings on most LPs are continuous, which produces a truer sound -- though, paradoxically, some new LP releases are being recorded and mixed digitally but delivered analog.

Some purists also argue that the compression required to allow loudness in some digital formats weakens the quality as well.

But it's not just about the sound. Audiophiles say they also want the format's overall experience -- the sensory experience of putting the needle on the record, the feeling of side A and side B and the joy of lingering over the liner notes.

"I think music products should be more than just music," said Isaac Hudson, a 28-year-old vinyl fan standing outside one of Portland's larger independent music stores.

The interest seems to be catching on. Turntable sales are picking up, and the few remaining record pressers say business is booming.

But the LP isn't going to muscle out CDs or iPod soon.

Nearly 450 million CDs were sold last year, versus just under 1 million LPs, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Based on the first three months of this year, Nielsen says vinyl album sales could reach 1.6 million in 2008.

"I don't think vinyl is for everyone; it's for the die-hard music consumer," said Jay Millar, director of marketing at United Record Pressing, a Nashville based company that is the nation's largest record pressing plant.

Many major artists -- Elvis Costello, the Raconteurs and others -- are issuing LPs and encouraging fans to check out their albums on vinyl. On Amazon.com, one of the best-selling LPs is Madonna's latest album, "Hard Candy".

Some artists package vinyl and digital versions of their music together, including offers for free digital downloads along with the record.

"We've definitely had some talks with the major retailers about exclusives on the manufacturing end," Millar said of United Record Pressing, which focuses primarily on independent recordings.

An avid music fan himself, Millar says he has moved to vinyl in recent years.

"Once I got my first iPod ... I'm looking at my wall of CDs and trying to justify it," Millar said. "The things I like -- the artwork, the liner notes, the sound quality -- it dawns on me, those are things I like better on vinyl." He welcomed back the pops and clicks, even some of the scratches.

"I like that fact that it's imperfect in a lot of ways, live music is imperfect too," Millar said.

Independent music stores, which have been the primary source of LPs in recent years, say many fans never left the medium.

"People have been buying vinyl all along," said Cathy Hagen, manager at 2nd Avenue Records in Portland. "There was a fairly good supply from independent labels on vinyl all these years. As far as a resurgence, the major labels are just pressing more now."

In this game, big retailers aren't necessarily competing head to head with independent sellers' regular clientele of nostalgic baby boomers, independent label fans and turntable DJs.

"I cannot see that Best Buy or Fred Meyer would order the same things we would," Hagen said. "They aren't going to be ordering the reggae, funk, punk or industrial music."

Blind Pig Records has announced a June 24, 2008 release date for 180-gram vinyl LP releases from Johnny Shines and Snooky Pryor, Charlie Musselwhite, and Jimmy Thackery.

Johnny Shines & Snooky Pryor "Back to the Country" Two blues legends re-unite to create a stunning album of acoustic Delta blues, "the most authentic set of shotgun shack blues this side of Robert Johnson" (Boston Herald). Winner of the 1992 W.C. Handy Award for Country Blues Album of the Year. Remastered from original analog tapes, with a specially designed LP cover.

Charlie Musselwhite "The Harmonica According To..." This 1978 session features Charlie offering a virtual master class in blues harmonica style and performance, playing thirteen tunes in thirteen different keys. A tour-de-force for a giant of the blues harmonica. Remastered from original analog tapes, with a specially designed LP cover.

Jimmy Thackery "Guitar" A collection of Thackery's hottest guitar instrumental tracks from his most vibrant and creative period. "A dazzling disc displaying Thackery's sizzling six-string prowess." (AllMusic) For those who like their blues playing fast, distorted, and mean, each of these fully rockin' instrumentals are a crash course in the art of crowd-pleasing blues licks." (Guitar Player)

The three LPs are the second group of titles to be re-issued as audiophile records as part of Blind Pig's Vinyl Masters Series.

Lucille Ridges, founder of the Vicksburg Blues Society (Vicksburg, MS), is moving to Denver and handing the reins of the growing group over to Shirley Waring.

"I'm really counting on Shirley to take it to the next level," said Ridges, who created the VBS in 2002 and has since served as acting president. "The society is primed to do some great things for the blues and for Vicksburg, and I believe Shirley will be able to make them happen as president."

Waring is a commercial real estate broker and developer as well as the president of the Vicksburg Heritage League, which promotes tourism and local events. She has been instrumental in organizing the blues weekend in the city beginning Friday in honor of B.B. King's visit and concert at the Vicksburg Convention Center Thursday.

"I'm hoping that with my experience and organizing skills I'll be able to bring some excitement and new energy to the blues society," she said. "It's an important part of Vicksburg's heritage, and it's important to the city's tourism industry."

Ridges said the accomplishments she is most proud of during her time in Vicksburg include the blues society's 2006 Willie Dixon's Wang Dang Doodle Blues Festival and the fact that the VBS is still a viable organization in the community.

Ridges said the move to Denver was prompted by a job offer to her husband, John, who will take on duties as a senior developer of a computer and technologies company. The couple will retain property they own and hope to develop in Vicksburg, said Ridges, and will make return visits.

While in Denver, Ridges said she will focus on her musical career and a songwriter and blues guitarist.