Max Hightower joins Blues Matters’ Colin Campbell to discuss his new album The Blues Chooses You and a musical life shaped by the blues.

Max recalls discovering Jimi Hendrix, Muddy Waters and James Cotton, finding the harmonica after an early attempt at guitar, and learning from musicians including Cootie Stark and Mac Arnold.

He also takes us inside the making of The Blues Chooses You, recorded at Nashville’s Bomb Shelter studio using vintage equipment and a deliberately old-school approach. Rather than separating the musicians and polishing every detail, the aim was to capture the sound of a band reacting to each other in the room.

Max also reflects on songwriting, touring in Europe and Japan, and why the blues continues to cross borders, generations and languages.

Joanne Shaw Taylor joins Blues Matters to discuss her new album, The Trouble with Love, and the journey that has taken her from Solihull to Nashville and stages around the world.

She talks about discovering Stevie Ray Vaughan as a teenager, developing her own musical identity and why her combination of blues guitar, soul vocals and rock-pop songwriting has led her to create a genre of her own: “blues pop”.

Joanne also takes us through the making of The Trouble with Love, working with Kevin Shirley, Joe Bonamassa and Orianthi, and the different forms of love that inspired the songs.

There are also plenty of stories from life on the road, from cruise ships and moving trains to a Bulgarian jam session involving a kazoo.

Sari Schorr joins Blues Matters’ Stephen Harrison to discuss her new album Running Wild and the unexpected creative journey behind it.

“We should demand to be happy.”

She explains how writing sessions with Jamie Walker and Lou Paget quickly developed into a full album, why working without outside pressure gave her a new sense of freedom, and why Running Wild feels like the clearest statement yet of who she is as an artist.

Sari also reflects on recording in Lancaster, performing at Carnegie Hall, the classical training that helped shape her voice, the realities of touring and why she believes the artist should never be the most important person in the room.