Various artists

Beatles 4-ever! This collection of blues artists interpreting Beatle songs moves with lightning speed from quirky concept to righteous interpretation. That both Lennon and McCartney could and would belt it out is a fact we kids just accepted—it wasn’t marketed and categorized as such back then. Standout performances on these 10 everlasting tunes are Lucky Petersen’s haunting and taunting “Yer Blues,” Anders Osborn’s snaky, voodoo-ish “Happiness Is a Warm Gun,” T-Bone Wolk’s snappy Chuck Berry-esque take on Ringo’s “Don’t Pass Me By,” Joe Louis Walker’s rich, unfolding version of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and the elegiac closer, “Dear Prudence,” an eight-minute instrumental beauty from noble melodic harpman Charlie Musselwhite and his equally lyrical partner, guitarist Colin Linden. The album also reveals a clear and ever-present need for literate blues lyric writers.