Blues and bourbon both carry long memories. Their histories are preserved in songs, playing styles, distilleries, mash bills, warehouses, labels, clubs and the people who learned the craft from someone who came before them.
This week brought that connection into focus.
Charlie Musselwhite is still sharing knowledge gathered during decades around musicians including Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. Sonny Landreth has returned with new music shaped by a slide guitar language he has spent a lifetime developing. Ally Venable is bringing a performance from London’s historic 100 Club to a worldwide audience through livestreaming.
In bourbon, MGP has finally placed its own name on a bottle after decades of supplying whiskey for other brands. Heaven Hill has revived a fermentation practice associated with Parker Beam. Four Roses has included 23-year-old bourbon in its latest Limited Edition Small Batch while continuing to explore the recipe and yeast system that has long set the distillery apart.
The shared story is one of inheritance put to use. Old methods, names, songs and places become valuable when contemporary musicians and distillers find fresh ways to work with them.
Sonny Landreth Is Still Inventing Louisiana Guitar
Sonny Landreth released “Lady On The Rise” on September 9, offering the first preview of a new studio album expected in 2027.
Recorded at Electric Comoland in Lafayette, Louisiana, the track features Landreth on guitar and vocals, Brian Brignac on drums and percussion, and Tony Daigle on keyboards and production.
Landreth’s playing has always occupied a distinct place in American guitar music. His sound draws from blues, zydeco, Cajun music and the broader culture of South Louisiana, while his technique has remained highly individual. He combines slide work with fretted notes in ways that create unusual harmonic movement, making his guitar voice recognizable within only a few measures.
His timing is especially interesting because he is returning to AmericanaFest this month for the first time in more than two decades. That places one of Louisiana’s most singular musicians directly within the current Americana conversation.
Louisiana music has produced many influential languages, though some have resisted easy standardization. Landreth represents that regional stubbornness at its best. His work carries the sounds of the Gulf South while remaining difficult to reduce to a single genre label.
Charlie Musselwhite Knows Where the Blues Lives
Charlie Musselwhite has spent roughly six decades collecting experiences that cannot be fully recovered from records, museum displays or liner notes.
In an interview published September 7 from Clarksdale, the 82-year-old harmonica player reflected on Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Buddy Guy, juke joints and the communities that shaped postwar blues culture.
Those memories arrive during a productive period in Musselwhite’s own career. He recently joined Boston trio GA-20 for *BLUES NOW*, released July 31 through New West Records and produced by GA-20 guitarist Matthew Stubbs.
The album looks back toward late 1950s and 1960s electric blues, drawing on material connected with Elmore James, Junior Wells, Earl Hooker and Otis Spann. Its direct production gives the music the atmosphere of musicians sharing space and responding to one another in real time.
That quality matters because so much of blues knowledge is carried through personal contact. Recordings preserve songs and performances. Museums preserve instruments, photographs and local history. Musicians often pass along subtler things through rehearsal rooms, sound checks, van rides and late-night conversations: timing, phrasing, repertoire, humor, confidence, survival stories and lessons about the people behind the music.
Musselwhite carries an unusual amount of that living memory. He also occupies an unusual place in popular culture as one of the figures long associated with the inspiration for Dan Aykroyd’s Elwood Blues character. His life has connected the actual world of Chicago blues with a film version that brought a stylized form of that culture to a mass audience.
Finland Has Had the Blues Long Enough to Make It Its Own
Finnish slide guitarist Erja Lyytinen released a live version of “Hard as Stone” on September 9, offering a second preview from *50th Birthday Live 2026*.
The project documents Lyytinen’s March 21 fiftieth-birthday concert at Helsinki’s House of Culture. It arrives October 9 through Tuohi Records as a double CD, double vinyl and DVD package.
The House of Culture has hosted major names including Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Queen. Lyytinen’s performance adds another chapter to the venue’s long relationship with guitar-driven music.
Her career also illustrates how far blues has traveled from its American origins. European musicians have played blues for generations, and the scene now has its own institutions, festivals, clubs, specialist labels, touring circuits, artists and audiences.
Lyytinen’s slide playing clearly carries the influence of American blues guitar. Her career has been built largely within Europe, where she has developed her own repertoire, audience and artistic identity. That history makes European blues feel less like a passing fascination and more like a regional tradition with its own internal continuity.
Roots music often changes as it moves. Local musicians bring their own accents, audiences, experiences and musical instincts to a form that began somewhere else. Over time, those contributions become part of the form’s larger history.
Ally Venable Gives the 100 Club a Bigger Room
Texas guitarist Ally Venable performs at London’s 100 Club on September 10 with Canadian guitarist Garret T. Willie as special guest.
The 100 Club remains one of Britain’s best-known small music rooms. Live music has been presented at the site since the 1940s, and it has operated under the 100 Club name since 1964.
For Venable’s show, the room will reach far beyond Oxford Street. She is livestreaming the concert internationally, allowing fans outside London to experience a performance from one of the city’s most storied venues.
Venable is touring behind *Money and Power*, recorded in Nashville and featuring Shemekia Copeland and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram. Her career reflects the way younger blues artists now work across several overlapping platforms. Touring remains central. Streaming connects recordings with listeners around the world. Social media maintains contact between shows. Livestreaming gives a club performance a much wider reach.
That arrangement may prove especially valuable for legacy rooms such as the 100 Club. A historic small venue derives much of its appeal from intimacy. The limited capacity, the proximity to the stage and the shared experience inside the room are part of the draw.
A livestream expands access without changing the room itself. Fans in London can stand near the stage. Fans elsewhere can still become part of the moment.
British Southern Rock Finds Something Current to Say
British four-piece Wood Burnt Red released its debut album, *Hold On Tight*, on September 4.
Across 11 songs, the band blends country storytelling, Southern rock, blues guitar and themes that include addiction, relationships, loss, resilience and financial strain.
“Best Things” arrives at a particularly relevant moment. The song examines the pressure to appear prosperous even when the cost of maintaining that appearance has become difficult to carry. It is a contemporary subject delivered through a musical vocabulary usually associated with earlier Southern rock records.
Southern rock has traveled well outside the American South. British musicians have returned frequently to its guitars, storytelling, swagger and emotional directness. Wood Burnt Red gives those influences a stronger purpose by connecting them to present-day concerns.
A musician in Britain can borrow the sound of Alabama, Georgia or Tennessee and still speak clearly about their own life. The value comes from bringing real experience to the borrowed vocabulary.
Eric Clapton Finds a Song Left Behind in 1975
Eric Clapton opened his six-city U.S. tour at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena on September 6, with Jimmie Vaughan supporting.
The set included expected material such as “Layla,” “Tears in Heaven” and “Cocaine,” along with a less familiar choice from Clapton’s catalogue.
He performed “Give Me Strength,” a song from 1974’s *461 Ocean Boulevard*. Available set list records indicate that he had not played the song live since 1975.
The selection is revealing because *461 Ocean Boulevard* came from a period when Clapton was moving into a broader roots-oriented musical world. The album reflected his interest in blues, gospel, reggae and American song traditions, following the louder virtuosity associated with Cream and other earlier projects.
More than 50 years later, he has returned to one of that album’s less obvious tracks.
Deep cuts often reveal more about an artist’s current relationship with their career than familiar hits do. Audiences expect to hear certain songs. A forgotten song entering the set suggests that an artist has found something newly meaningful in an older piece of work.
MGP Comes Out of the Shadows
The largest American whiskey story of the week comes from Lawrenceburg, Indiana.
MGP has launched *Chapter One: Out of the Shadows*, its first consumer whiskey to prominently carry the MGP name.
For drinkers familiar with the industry, the title has a certain humor. MGP has long been one of the major engines of modern American whiskey, supplying spirit that has appeared under numerous other labels. Many bourbon enthusiasts learned to identify MGP through mash bills, distillery codes, flavor profiles and sourcing disclosures long before the company built a public-facing whiskey brand around its own initials.
The new bourbon is 10 years old, bottled at 111 proof and made from MGP’s high-rye LBSV recipe:
60 percent corn
36 percent rye
4 percent malted barley
The barrels spent their full decade in Rickhouse G at Lawrenceburg. The suggested retail price is $69.99.
Producer notes describe butterscotch, burnt sugar, molasses and cherry on the nose, followed by cherry cola, raspberry, chocolate, sassafras and leather.
The bottle matters because it marks a change in how sourced whiskey is understood. MGP’s identity has grown beyond its role as an anonymous supplier. The distillery now has enough recognition among informed drinkers to make its own name part of the value proposition.
Parker Beam’s Fermentation Knowledge Returns
Heaven Hill’s 20th Parker’s Heritage Collection release reaches into a less visible part of the bourbon-making process.
The 14-year-old Kentucky Straight Bourbon uses Heaven Hill’s traditional mash bill:
78 percent corn
10 percent rye
12 percent malted barley
Its most distinctive feature is rye backset.
Backset is liquid remaining after distillation that is introduced into a subsequent fermentation. Heaven Hill says Parker Beam championed the rye-based technique as a way to maintain consistency while influencing spice and flavor development.
The release brings together 100 barrels distilled between October 2011 and January 2012, then matured across Rickhouses A, KK, L and M. It is bottled non-chill filtered at 118 proof with a suggested retail price of $199.99.
Premium bourbon releases often emphasize grain recipes, barrels, char levels, warehouse locations, age statements and finishing methods. Fermentation receives less attention because it is harder to turn into a visual story. Yet it remains fundamental to the spirit that eventually goes into the barrel.
This release makes fermentation part of the legacy. Heaven Hill also says the Parker’s Heritage Collection, which honors Beam following his ALS diagnosis in 2010, has generated more than $1.4 million for the ALS Association.
Four Roses Goes to 23 Years
The 2026 Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch reaches deep into the distillery’s mature stocks.
Master distiller Brent Elliott has combined four batches from three recipes:
14-year OBSK
14-year OESK
15-year OESV
23-year OESK
The bourbon is bottled non-chill filtered at 109.2 proof and is scheduled to arrive October 10 at a suggested retail price of $249.
Four Roses describes apricot and oak on the nose, followed by baking spice, honey, vanilla, caramel and restrained mature oak.
The 23-year component makes this the oldest Limited Edition Small Batch composition in the series to date. That age statement will understandably attract attention, though the structure of the blend is the more interesting part of the story.
Four Roses works with two mash bills and five proprietary yeast strains, producing 10 distinct recipes. That gives the blending team a wide range of variables involving grain, yeast character, maturation and age.
The inclusion of both 14-year and 23-year OESK bourbon creates a particularly compelling comparison within the blend. The same recipe appears at significantly different stages of barrel maturity. The result should reveal how additional time shapes a related flavor profile rather than simply adding an older whiskey to a younger one.
Kentucky Boy Becomes a Liquid Biography
Brown-Forman has revived the Kentucky Boy name for a one-time bourbon honoring Chris Morris and his 50 years with the company.
The 100-proof whiskey was assembled by Woodford Reserve master distiller Elizabeth McCall and Old Forester assistant master distiller Caleb Trigo. It includes whiskies associated with Morris’ career, including Woodford Reserve Double Oaked, Old Forester Birthday Bourbon and King of Kentucky.
The suggested price is $99.99.
Morris joined Brown-Forman in 1976 and later became Old Forester’s fifth master distiller. His name has become closely connected with Woodford Reserve, Old Forester and the rise of premium American bourbon over the past several decades.
The Kentucky Boy name also carries its own history. Brown-Forman acquired the trademark in 1923 through its purchase of Louisville’s Lynndale Distillery.
The release brings together several whiskey programs associated with Morris beneath a dormant historical label. It works as a liquid biography, connecting different eras of Brown-Forman through a single bottle.
A portion of net proceeds will support Second Stride, an organization that retrains and rehomes retired Thoroughbred racehorses.
Kentucky Basketball Meets Kentucky Bourbon
Heaven Hill Brands and UK Athletics announced a multiyear partnership on September 3, bringing two of Kentucky’s most recognizable cultural institutions closer together.
Elijah Craig becomes the Wildcats’ Official Small Batch Bourbon Partner. Evan Williams becomes the Official Bourbon Partner.
The partnership includes a substantial physical presence. The Mezzanine Club at Kroger Field will become the Elijah Craig Club. Rupp Arena’s Bourbon Club will become the Elijah Craig Speakeasy. Evan Williams will appear in tailgate and fan-zone activations, while co-branded bottles are also planned.
The first special bottle will come from an Elijah Craig barrel selected by UK Athletics Director J Batt in Bardstown.
Kentucky has long exported powerful images of itself through bourbon, basketball and Thoroughbred racing. The Heaven Hill partnership brings bourbon and basketball together within the same fan experience.
It also reflects bourbon’s growing emphasis on physical settings where consumers can encounter a brand socially. Distilleries have expanded their visitor experiences. Whiskey festivals have become major cultural gatherings. Sports venues, hospitality spaces, private barrel selections and special events give brands a more direct connection with their audiences.
Chicken Cock Opens the Graphic Archive
Chicken Cock Whiskey is marking its 170th anniversary with two limited bourbons debuting at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival.
An eight-year-old Kentucky Straight Bourbon is bottled at 115 proof and presented in the company’s first ceramic rooster decanter. Its suggested retail price is $199.99.
The 170th Anniversary Legacy Kentucky Straight Bourbon is at least six years old, also bottled at 115 proof, with a suggested retail price of $99.99.
The Legacy release has particular interest from a design and branding perspective. Founder James A. Miller’s name returns to Chicken Cock packaging for the first time in more than a century, accompanied by visual references to the company’s pre-Prohibition advertising.
Miller founded Chicken Cock in Paris, Kentucky, in 1856.
As the bourbon market becomes increasingly crowded, historical design assets have become more valuable. Old typography, trademarks, bottle shapes, newspaper advertisements and long-dormant brand names give distillers an archive of visual material that can communicate provenance before a customer opens the bottle.
Can the Mississippi River Age Bourbon?
O.H. Ingram continues to pursue one of American whiskey’s more intriguing experiments.
Its River Aged Flagship Bourbon Batch 6 receives an official release on September 12 after an early preview this month.
The new batch is a seven-year-old wheated bourbon blended from 25 barrels matured aboard O.H. Ingram’s floating barrelhouses on the Mississippi River. It is bottled at 113.8 proof and priced at $79.99.
The company’s theory centers on movement and environment. Barrels resting on the river experience continual motion, along with changes in humidity and temperature. O.H. Ingram argues that these conditions affect the way whiskey interacts with oak compared with a barrel stored in a stationary warehouse.
The degree of scientific impact will remain open to debate. The concept has clear cultural power because bourbon has always been intensely geographic. Kentucky limestone, Indiana distilling, warehouse location, weather patterns and barrel placement all factor into the language used to explain a whiskey.
O.H. Ingram adds the Mississippi River to that vocabulary.
The floating barrelhouse also makes the story visually inseparable from the product. The river becomes part of the maturation setting, part of the brand identity and part of the whiskey’s claim to individuality.
Where Blues Meets Bourbon
On September 3, the City Club of Baton Rouge held a Bourbon and Blues event built around a private Woodford Reserve barrel selection.
The evening included bottle engraving, specialty cocktails and live music from the Crettet Quartet. It was a small event, though it captured the relationship between these two cultures with unusual clarity.