Long before his first album, Bobby Long acquired a following due to his friendship with a certain sparkling vampire and writing a song for one very popular soundtrack. Soon after, he released A Winter Tale.  

After well over a quarter century, Lil Ed and the Blues Imperials are now seasoned veterans but they still spit and snarl with unbridled energy, tossing off blistering slide guitar runs and red-meat-raw riffage with the same intensity that marked their fake moustache days.   

For Chicagoan Frank Blinkal, a day-and-night club job at Buddy Guy’s Legends gave him a front row seat and unprecedented access to some of the greatest names in Blues — Otis Rush, Lonnie Brooks and Junior Wells, not to mention Legends’ illustrious owner.    

Trixie Whitley was destined for a creative life. She's the daughter of acclaimed Blues/Folk singer/songwriter Chris Whitley and his Belgian wife Helene Gavaert, whose Gypsy lineage brims with painters, sculptors and musicians.    

Left Land Cruiser's output is brutish, noisy and deep-fried in so much muck and raw distortion that you'll want to take a half-hour shower after a few YouTube listens.   

Sometimes it only takes a well-placed reference to bump an artist up to the next level. French-born guitarist Stephane Wrembel was already enjoying an acclaimed career when director Woody Allen tapped him to score the theme of his 2011 Academy Award-winning film Midnight in Paris, which he performed live to the millions who tuned into the ceremony’s telecast.   

 A native Texan, Ruthie Foster’s family tree was ripe with Gospel singers, but she quickly absorbed the Lone Star State’s other musical identities, like Folk, Blues, Country and Rock, to which she added her own soulful spin.   

Very few people fit the true definition of prodigy, but Joe Bonamassa could be the poster child for prodigies. By age 7, after three short years of playing guitar, Bonamassa was regurgitating note-perfect renditions of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix.   

JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound’s sophomore album, Want More, might sound like some lost artifact from Otis Redding’s archive, but the Chicago quartet is young enough to be Redding’s grandchildren and have only been working their Indie Rock corner of Chicago Soul since 2007.    

To her infinite credit, Eilen Jewell has never been tempted to churn out a sanitized and commercially viable version of Country with a view toward success and fame.