The doldrums of summer have come early this year, as shown by the blues chart for the week ending June 22nd, 2013. Swap a few chart positions around, move James Cotton's excellent Cotton Mouth Man back into the Top Ten where it belongs, and you pretty much have the same chart as last week (and the week before). Still, it's fairly solid collection of music, Swamp People notwithstanding...

Still, it's a pretty good week for new releases and you can't go wrong by putting down hard coin for Delbert McClinton & Glen Clark's Blind, Crippled & Crazy, King King's Standing In The Shadows, Lurrie Bell's Blues In My Soul, and/or Studebaker John's Maxwell Street Kings' Kingsville Jukin'. I'd recommend them all, which is an expensive week, but if you could only grab up one title from the indie record store in your neighborhood, I'd go for the Delbert & Glen disc, an entertaining collection of roots 'n' blues that's right in Delbert's wheelhouse. U.K. blues-rockers King King are the week's underdog, but of what I've heard, the band rocks like nobody's business and, of course, Lurrie Bell is Chicago blues royalty and he always delivers a solid effort.

Here are this week's Billboard Top Ten blues albums, ranked by sales:

10. Shouting Matches - Grownass Man (Middle West Records)
9. Gary Clark, Jr. - iTunes Session (Warner Brothers)
8. Various Artists - Swamp People (Rounder Records)
7. James Cotton - Cotton Mouth Man (Alligator Records)
6. Charlie Musselwhite & Ben Harper - Get Up! (Stax Records)
5. Joe Bonamassa - An Acoustic Evening at the Vienna Opera House (J&R Adventures)
4. Boz Scaggs - Memphis (429 Records)
3. Beth Hart - Bang Bang Boom Boom (Provogue Records)
2. Gary Clark, Jr. - Blak and Blu (Warner Brothers)
1. Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa - Seesaw (J&R Adventures)

New releases: Delbert McClinton & Glen Clark's Blind, Crippled & Crazy (New West Records); King King's Standing In The Shadows (Manhaton Records); Lurrie Bell's Blues In My Soul (Delmark Records); Studebaker John's Maxwell Street Kings' Kingsville Jukin' (Delmark Records)

Photo of Lurrie Bell's Blues In My Soul courtesy Delmark Records

Omar Dykes, as both a solo artist and with his infamous outfit the Howlers, has made a career with his individual brand of rootsy, raucous Texas blues for around three and a half decades now. As he proved with his 2008 collaboration with guitarist Jimmie Vaughan, On The Jimmy Reed Highway, Dykes has never been shy about wearing his influences on his sleeve, either...so when it was announced that Omar was going to be releasing a tribute album to the one and only Howlin' Wolf, the question wasn't "why?" but rather "what took him so long?"

On July 9, 2013 Provogue Records will release Runnin' With The Wolf, Dykes' masterful tribute to the late, great Chester Burnett, a/k/a Howlin' Wolf. The album, recorded in Austin, Texas with a talented bunch of players that included guitarists Derek O'Brien, Eve Monsees, and Casper Rawls; bassist Ronnie James, and drummer Wes Starr, among other guest musicians, features a red-hot 15 songs - all but the title track a cover of a song either written by or made famous by the Wolf.

Of course, Howlin' Wolf had a lot of luck with producer/songwriter Willie Dixon's songbook, so you have such classic Dixon-penned rockers like "The Red Rooster," "Spoonful," "Back Door Man," and "Wang Dang Doodle" as well as Burnett's originals like "Smokestack Lightning," "I'm Leavin' You," and "Howlin' For My Baby." Dykes' title track is a whip-smart and rowdy remembrance of all these songs, name checking a veritable history of the blues.

"We're not going to play a Howlin' Wolf song just like it was played back in the day because we can't," says Dykes in a press release for the album. "Nobody can do it since for one thing, nobody can play the guitar like Hubert Sumlin, who must have come here from a hovercraft. When I first heard Hubert play, I swore he was from outer space because there is no one like him. The same goes for Howlin' Wolf. Hubert was the perfect guitarist for Howlin' Wolf."

Talking about his performances on Runnin' With The Wolf, Dykes says "my intent was not to copy the songs but to stay close to the spirit. I tried to modernize the songs. I didn't want to do what some guys do, which is poke holes in the speakers and get that exact guitar sound. Why copy something note for note and follow every little detail, when it's already available in the original form? That's exactly how I feel. I wanted to have fun with songs that I've loved ever since I was a kid."

Lest anyone worry that Dykes' is falling into a trap of performing nothing but well-chosen cover songs, he reassures fans that, his tribute albums aside, he has been writing plenty of new material. "I still have songs," he says. "I'll have them out sooner or later. I'll do my own stuff anyway and this is just something on the side. I did Jimmy Reed, who I love and adore. Now it's time for Howlin' Wolf. There was never anyone like him."

Related content: Omar Dykes & Jimmie Vaughan - On The Jimmy Reed Highway CD review

Photo courtesy Provogue Records

The Allman Brothers Band's 1973 album Brothers & Sisters was, like its predecessor, overshadowed by tragedy. While founding guitarist and band namesake Duane Allman died during the making of 1972's Eat A Peach, bassist Berry Oakley was killed in a similar motorcycle accident blocks away from where Allman died while the band was recording Brothers & Sisters ("Wasted Word," "Ramblin' Man," and "Come and Go Blues" feature Oakley's bass work).

The Allman Brothers just kept on truckin', recruiting Lamar Williams on bass (who would later join Southern rockers Sea Level), Williams joining another new band member, keyboardist Chuck Leavell in the re-vamped band line-up. Guitarist Dickey Betts took a larger role in songwriting, bringing four new songs to the album alongside Gregg Allman's three. When Brothers & Sisters was released in August 1973, it shot to the top of the charts on the strength of the hit single "Ramblin' Man" (which, itself rose to #2), where it spent five weeks at number one before it would eventually earn Platinum™ sales status.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Brothers & Sisters, and to celebrate the event, Universal Music is reissuing the album in multiple formats on its Mercury Records imprint. One June 25th, 2013 Brothers & Sisters will be available on vinyl and CD in a remastered version featuring the album's original seven songs. A deluxe two-CD version will include the original (remastered) album on disc one while the nine-song second disc features rehearsals, jams, and studio outtakes.

The "super deluxe" four-disc Brothers & Sisters is the real attraction at this anniversary party, the first two discs duplicating the "deluxe" edition, discs three and four featuring the Allman Brothers Band live in concert at the Winterland Ballroom on September 26, 1973. The two discs offer up sixteen actual performances (plus an "intro" by promoter Bill Graham), eleven of which are previously unreleased, and feature four songs from Brothers & Sisters (the best ones) along with such ABB fan favorites as "Midnight Rider," "Statesboro Blues," and "Whipping Post."

While many critics and music historians consider Brothers & Sisters to be a minor entry in the blues-rock band's extensive catalog (especially in light of the band's phenomenal first four albums), fans have long looked at the recording as the Allman Brothers Band's triumph over tragedy, their most commercially-successful album and one well worth revisiting in this deluxe format.

Photo courtesy Universal Music

Not a lot to jump and down about when looking at the blues chart for the week ending June 15th, 2013, as pretty much everything stays the same (again). Charlie Musselwhite and Ben Harper's excellent Get Up! album jumped up five spaces, Ana Popovic's Can You Stand The Heat dropped down a few spaces, and Gary Clark, Jr.'s iTunes Sessions "digital LP" reappears mid-chart after a six-week absence. The most notable occurrence this week is the debut of Popa Chubby's Universal Breakdown Blues album, which inched its way into the number ten spot in its first week of release.

A couple of big new releases this week in the form of Mike Zito's Gone To Texas and guitar monster Walter Trout's Luther's Blues, his tribute to the late, great blues guitarist Luther Allison. Both should fare well once sales are factored into the chart, Trout being a perennial visitor to the Top Ten, Zito an occasional guest whose profile is much larger this time around after a successful stint on the road with Royal Southern Brotherhood. The Rev's personal pick this week is an archival release, Climax Blues Band's Live At Rockpalast 1976, a document of the underrated band's performance on the popular German TV show Rockpalast in, well, 1976...

Here are this week's Billboard Top Ten blues albums, ranked by sales:

10. Popa Chubby - Universal Breakdown Blues (Provogue Records)
9. Ana Popovic - Can You Stand The Heat (Artist Exclusive Records)
8. Various Artists - Swamp People (Rounder Records)
7. Beth Hart - Bang Bang Boom Boom (Provogue Records)
6. Joe Bonamassa - An Acoustic Evening at the Vienna Opera House (J&R Adventures)
5. Gary Clark, Jr. - iTunes Session (Warner Brothers)
4. Charlie Musselwhite & Ben Harper - Get Up! (Stax Records)
3. Boz Scaggs - Memphis (429 Records)
2. Gary Clark, Jr. - Blak and Blu (Warner Brothers)
1. Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa - Seesaw (J&R Adventures)

New releases: Climax Blues Band's Live At Rockpalast 1976 (Repertoire Records); Mike Zito's Gone To Texas (Ruf Records); Walter Trout's Luther's Blues (Provogue Records)

Photo of Climax Blues Band's Live At Rockpalast 1976 courtesy Repertoire Records