URL: https://ashleyj.net/

Ashley J’s musical journey from her Orlando, Florida upbringing to her current status as a blossoming pop superstar has featured a number of twists. She’s donned a number of musical hats during her brief commercial career – she’s cut music in studios from Nashville to Los Angeles before finally settling into her current style. Ashley J has truly found her proper ground as a pop vocal powerhouse with songwriting talents to back it up and throws herself heart-first into this performance. It results in a performance that will likely end 2018 still rating high as one of the year’s best singles and reflects both J’s talent and unquestionable dedication that’s fueled her rapid rise through popular music ranks. “Satisfied” leaves this young lady poised on the cusp of top shelf stardom and, if the stars align in her favor as they should, she can go on from that point forward fully confident that she’s arrived at this place the way truly great recording artists do – by following their muse and heart.

URL: https://albertcummings.com/

Albert Cummings’ latest album, Live at the ’62 Center, finds this ultra talented songwriter, vocalist, and blues guitar great playing a full set for a hometown crowd in his native Williamstown, Massachusetts. The twelve song recording is full of the fire and heart defining the best blues music while also distinguished by a superior songwriting sensibility that knows how to interject its voice amidst familiar musical elements. Live at the ’62 Center features all of the aural strengths that makes for a memorable live album – an understated but helpful balance between the performance and audience, a warm production effort never sacrificing authenticity to achieve its ends, and a physical mix capturing the musicians accurately without any needless adornments or embellishments. Live at the ’62 Center is a more than worthy representation of one man’s talents and the state of a genre extending much further than the relatively limited purview of modern mainstream blues giants like Joe Bonamassa, among others.

URL: https://kristylovebrooks.com/bio/

Fifteen songs may sound excessive, but Kristy Love Brooks makes her pass through a variety of stylistic masks quite believable and never tests listener’s patience. The songs on The Soul of Rock ‘n’ Roll are supremely well crafted numbers with inspired performances all around, but centering on the unique and deep running talents of Kristy Brooks. She takes on classic soul and R&B sounds with prodigious ease, but she also proves her mettle as a vocalist using her voice with island/Caribbean flavors and even rock with convincing results. She’s experienced success and critical appreciation as more than a recording artist and songwriter; Brooks has found appreciation as an actress, writer, playwright, and educator. She wears these many hats with the same intellience and distinctiveness embodied by each of the songs on this spectacular release. The Soul of Rock ‘n’ Roll delves just as deeply into the soul of Kristy Love Brooks and it’s a mesmerizing journey.

URL: https://tedczuk.com/

Theo Czuk’s The Black Bottom is a twelve song turn through the multiple faces jazz music has worn over the last century and he makes it sing and play as far more than some virtuosic academic exercise. Instead, these songs live with both pathos and humor with neither quality coming across as forced. Czuk has recruited a first class cadre of musicians to help realize his ambitions for this album and they remain a consistent presence through the collection’s twelve cuts. The Black Bottom could have conceivably come off as a staid, uninspired effort if he had pursued excessively studied results but, instead, it brims over and percolates with a level of freshness that few releases in popular music over 2017 could hope to match. We’re fortunate, as listeners, to experience a musical outing like this – surely no major label way back when or now would entertain the dim commercial prospects for such a release – and many, if not all, listeners will finish even a single spin through the songs feeling like a plant that’s been watered.