Guitar Lightnin’ Lee is coming to North Carolina for Freight Train Blues this month and Jazz Fest happened two weeks ago, so New Orleans and Lightnin’s blown-out 20-grit sandpaper guitar are on our minds. We’re thinking the history of Lightnin’s hometown and the way it taught America to feel all the extra beats and rhythms that have called the Crescent City home for hundreds of years and gifted us the most innovative sounds of R&B, funk, and rock n roll. Lightnin’s N.O.L.A. Rhythum & Booze takes that New Orleans sound, mixes it with the Chicago blues of Jimmy Reed, and runs a high-voltage current right through it.

— Zoe Van Buren