Tony Joe's first U.S. release since 1983 finds the swamp-rocker in rare form. Produced by Roger Davies – Tina Turner's manager/producer, and the one responsible for her '80s breakthrough – this is the most cohesive album he's made since his early Monument LPs with Billy Swan. Tony Joe is kept tightly focused with a small combo (Hammond organ, bass, drums), and the rest of the space in the mix is occupied by the star's funky guitar, harmonica, and breathy vocals, recorded so close he sounds like he's two inches from the listener's face. It also helps that Tony Joe's songwriting skills have only sharpened over the years; the disc is simply loaded with great songs, including "Crack the Window Baby," "Gumbo John," "I Want My Fleetwood Back," and the moody "Cold Fingers," "I Believe I've Lost My Way," and "Across From Midnight." One of his very best, and as highly recommended as they come.

Brewers Droop is the name of a Southern English band in which Mark Knopfler played for a few months in 1973. Knopfler split his time between teaching part-time, and playing with the band. The Booze Brothers, featuring Mark Knopfler & Dave Edmunds, is the second album released by Brewers Droop, an English blues band. Although most of the tracks were recorded back in 1973 the album was only released in 1989 when it was discovered that the album had involved the renowned producer/rocker Dave Edmunds and the line-up had included Pick Withers and Mark Knopfler, later of Dire Straits. Ron Watts, the founder of the band, became much better known later in the '70s as a punk rock promoter at venues such as 100 Club. Steve Darrington continued as a professional musician, appearing on over 50 albums, and is the organizer of the Swanage Blues Festival.

As part of Columbia/Legacy's ongoing celebration of Johnny Cash's 80th birthday in 2012, the label assembled a series of compilations under the rubric "The Greatest." This 19-track collection covers ground so obvious that it's a wonder there hasn't been a similar compilation before: it showcases Cash's chart-toppers. Strictly speaking, some of these singles did not reach number one – 1958's "The Ways of a Woman in Love" and 1979's "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky" peaked at two, while 1958's "What Do I Care" topped out at eight – and a good case could be made that "Get Rhythm," the charting flip of "I Walk the Line," should have been here, but that's ultimately nitpicking as this provides a single-disc overview of Cash's charting years unlike any other compilation on the market.

If Out Among the Stars had come out when its sessions were completed, it would've appeared sometime in 1984, arriving between 1983's flinty Johnny 99 and 1985's slippery, sentimental Rainbow. Allegedly, this album – discovered by Legacy and John Carter Cash during some archival work in 2012 – was shelved because its Billy Sherrill production was just a little bit too pop for Johnny Cash's taste, but that reasoning isn't sound, particularly with the Chips Moman-produced crossover of sugar of Rainbow taken into consideration. Moman had been riding high on the hits he produced for Willie Nelson – notably "Always on My Mind," Willie's last great crossover smash – and he applied a similar heavy-handed touch to Cash, who at that point was several years away from his last Country Top 10 hit.

This album was unusual on several counts. For starters, it was a soundtrack (for Sam Peckinpah's movie of the same title), a first venture of its kind for Bob Dylan. For another, it was Dylan's first new LP in three years – he hadn't been heard from in any form other than the single "George Jackson," his appearance at the Bangladesh benefit concert in 1971, in all of that time. Finally, it came out at an odd moment of juxtaposition in pop culture history, appearing in July 1973 on the same date as the release of Paul McCartney's own first prominent venture into film music, on the Live and Let Die soundtrack (the Beatles bassist had previously scored The Family Way, a British project overlooked amid the frenzy of the Beatles' success).

Arguably, Suzy Bogguss did more than anybody to change the role of the female vocalist during the 1990s. Certainly she racked up her share of hits – which are chronicled without fault on this collection. But more than that, she was a singer who weathered the Nash Vegas storms with grace, took control of her own career, and became producer of her own recordings.

Tony Joe White's self-titled third album, Tony Joe White, finds the self-proclaimed swamp fox tempering his bluesy swamp rockers with a handful of introspective, soul-dripping ballads and introducing horn and string arrangements for the first time. The album – White's 1971 debut for Warner Bros. – was recorded over a two-week period in December 1970, in two different Memphis studios (one was Ardent Studios, where Big Star later recorded their influential power pop albums). His producer was none other than London-born Peter Asher, who had just produced James Taylor's early hits for the label (he would continue to produce hits for Taylor and Linda Ronstadt on his way to becoming one of the most successful producers of the '70s). One can surmise that Warner Bros. may have put White and Asher together as a way for the producer to work his magic with an artist who had much promise.