Blues

Raphael Saadiq and Dr. John are both on tour at present, peddling different brands of regressively delightful music to packed, loyal audiences. The Doctor (Mac Rebennack, to get technical) and Saadiq (né Wiggins) wear their influences on their sleeves and dress in full-on vintage: Rebennack in voodoo regalia, Saadiq in a chickadee-yellow suit and oversize horn-rims.

The distinction, of course, is that the Saadiq's throwback pose is provisional; the Doctor's is dynastic.

The Memphis area is a region of musical families. The (Sam) Phillipses, the (Rufus) Thomases, and the (Jim) Dickinsons are just the leading names in a long list of multigeneration music clans that help give the local music scene such a tight-knit personality. Another royal name in Mid-South music is Burnside. The late R.L. Burnside rivaled Junior Kimbrough as the chief purveyor of north Mississippi hill-country blues when both men were making the scene at Kimbrough's Holly Springs juke joint and winning converts across the globe via albums for Mississippi indie label Fat Possum.

R.L. Burnside may be gone, having passed away in 2005, but he's left a living legacy, most prominently in the form of sons Garry and DuWayne and grandson Cedric.

Cedric, who started playing drums behind his grandfather when he was barely in his teens, has backed up Kenny Brown and played alongside his uncle Garry in the Burnside Exploration since his "Big Daddy" passed away, but of late he's stepping into the blues limelight even more as one half of the "juke joint duo" alongside singer-guitarist Steve "Lightnin'" Malcolm.

After a self-released debut album, Burnside & Malcolm are making their real-deal debut this fall with 2 Man Wrecking Crew, a terrific update on the hill-country tradition released by blues label Delta Groove.

For the most part, Burnside plays drums and Malcolm guitar, but the duo trades instruments on three of the album's 14 songs and they share writing and singing duties, with Burnside taking a slight lead. Vocally, they provide a nice contrast, with Malcolm's rough bellow something of a blue-eyed Howlin' Wolf while Burnside has a sweeter, lighter, more musical voice that edges into soul on standout tracks like "My Sweetheart" and "That's My Girl."

Another sign that the recession has been going on a lot longer than a month: Two local record stores are going bye-bye. In fact, Open Mind Music -- which moved to Market Street a couple years back in the hopes of staving off extinction -- is already gone, having shuttered its doors last month. (The store will apparently sell its remaining underground hip-hop, freaky techno, and oddball rock at the Other Shop on Divisadero and online.) Now comes the news that the 24th Street location of Streetlight Records is going kaput after the holidays.

On your mark, get set, go! The holiday party season is off and running. If you can't get invites to the Yelp party at the Exploratorium or the SF Weekly gig at the Aquarium, here's some other ideas.

Here's a few ideas on how to gear up for -- and wind down from -- this week's turkey devouring.

The Deal: Blues songstress, wife of Derek Trucks, returns with album of originals.

The Good: Tedeschi didn't hesitate to find herself a fine group of guests for her latest effort - Trucks, The Jayhawks' Gary Louris and The Allman Brothers' Doyle Bramhall II among them. Trucks appears on four of the 11 tracks to provide slide guitar and produced and co-wrote "Butterfly" with his wife. Tedeschi's voice is as fine as ever with the right hint of rasp to give her music a punching blues vibe and emotional, soul atmosphere - the album has the right touch of horns throughout, as well. It's nice to see Tedeschi return to songwriting after the departure of Hope and Desire, an album of cover songs. While that album focused on Tedeschi's vocals, this one lets the guitar shine but doesn't distract from the power of her voice. It's a return to the Susan of old - the one that appeared on the first three albums.

If you've got half a c-note to blow (and who doesn't these days?), you might want to head up to Santa Rosa tonight. History's in the making, as Sly & the Family Stone will be playing in Northern California for the first time in 30 years.

Hidden next to I-75 in Troy, just south of the Big Beaver Road exit, they sit, surrounded by strip malls, corporate high-rises and recently constructed apartment complexes. What we're looking at is a smattering of old farmhouses -- some still heated by oil furnaces and kerosene heaters -- on a two-block stretch of dirt and gravel road accessible only through an abutting parking lot.

Standing in stark opposition to its recently overly developed surroundings, one has the eerie feeling that this rural enclave won't be here much longer. But even after the last old homestead has been mercilessly uprooted and the final skyscraper is finished -- indeed after even it meets its bitter end -- one aspect of Troy's countrified past will remain, and that is its status as the hometown of Clix Records, one of the most elusive, seamless and sought-after imprints in all of early rock 'n' roll. Those now-ancient abodes once housed the early Michigan label.

Every picture tells a story," some dude sang ages ago. That's certainly the case with Little Sonny Willis, the "new king of the blues harmonica" and one of Detroit's most unsung musical legends, who's documented damn near every facet of his life with photographs while, by association, also documenting the Detroit blues music scene of the past four decades.

"Both my grandmother and my mother were pack rats," Willis says, sitting and reminiscing in the basement of his lovely Detroit home, all blue and white outside, including the all-terrain carpet leading up the walk to his front door. The basement could serve as a Michigan blues museum of sorts -- although John Penney, music expert and director of Farmington Hills' American Music Research Foundation, says only Willis' immediate circle of family and friends have ever seen the archives. In fact, he claims the artist himself hasn't looked at most of this archival treasure since his wife died 12 years ago.