Live in Montreux 1976-1994

This 78-minute collection from four appearances at the famed Swiss blues festival displays the varied strengths of Luther Allison's music. The tensile, screaming guitar work and squawling vocal attack Allison is known for are here, of course, but there's another layer at work. A 1984 set with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, for instance, offers the Muddy Waters-like "Back Down South" (on which Allison lays down his ax in favor of a harp), as well as the Otis Redding-style shouts of "Memories." The most intense moments come on "Bad News Is Coming" and "Bad Love" (with the Memphis Horns backing him up), when Allison pushes through to the pulse of his muse with a six-string expression of confusion and grit. They make his death in the late '90s poignant and that much more palpable. --Rickey Wright