If you’re looking for a local comparison for Retrospect, a young quartet that was the highest-finishing rock band at the 2003 Mid-South Grammy Showcase (finishing third overall), you might have problems. In some ways, the band splits the difference between the easy-on-the-ears college-rock of Ingram Hill and the glistening pop-rock of Crash Into June, except that Retrospect boasts a stronger guitar sound and surer beat than either. In a city where the rock scene sometimes seems like a four-point compass heading into directions heavy, rootsy, garage-y, or jammy, Retrospect might be the best bet for a straight-up rock breakout.

Though they certainly know their way around the alt-rock version of a power-ballad, the band’s at their best when rocking out a little. On their eponymous full-length debut (Ardent; Grade: B+), moody songs such as “One in a Million” and the overly emotive “Fall Like a Star” don’t hold up as well as more guitar-driven gems such as “Where Have You Been Hiding,” which has a faint roots-rock gallop, and especially the pure-pop gem “Forgetting Evelyn.” With its chiming guitars and circular chorus (“Morning brings a yellow light that turns to blue and then fades into night “), “Forgetting Evelyn” is so undeniably catchy that it can firmly implant itself in your hum matrix after only a couple of listens. The relatively modest vocals on these songs work well for singer Drew Thomas, who boasts an attractive, grainy yelp between emo and modern-rock, sort of like Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst aiming for AOR.

On the strength of this debut full-length, which was not only recorded at Midtown’s venerable Ardent Studios (where it was produced by Ross Rice and John Hampton) but released on the studio’s own imprint, Retrospect sounds like the kind of band that could score on a rock-radio lottery ticket and actually deserve it. You can catch the band this week on Saturday, February 19th, at the Skatepark of Memphis. Showtime is 7 p.m.

Local label Inside Sounds chimes in with a couple of wildly different compilations of local artists. Goin’ Down South: Blues Sampler Vol. 2 (Inside Sounds; Grade: A-), a sequel to a highly successful collection the label issued in 2001, and this sprawling, diverse follow-up is proof that the well is far from dry when it comes to contemporary Memphis blues.

Robert Belfour’s acoustic hill-country lament “Old Black Mattie” was recorded by local musicologist David Evans in 1994 but sounds timeless in both sound and content (“I work seven days a week/Still can’t make ends meet”). “Country Days” by Blind Mississippi Morris & Brad Webb tells the quintessential blues tale of urban migration with a slinky, slide-guitar wallop. Daddy Mack Orr’s stomping, electric “Goin’ Back to Memphis” testifies to the best of the modern Beale sound. “Chicken and Gravy,” a sweet generations-spanning duet between hill-country legend Jessie Mae Hemphill and young inheritor Richard Johnston, uncovers the gentler, sadly unmarketable side of the blues rarely remarked upon now. Onetime Muddy Waters acolyte Willie Foster pays tribute to his mentor with a live version of “Hoochie Coochie Man” recorded live at a Cleveland, Mississippi, juke. Elsewhere, blue-eyed blues such as the blues-rock of the McCarty-Hite Project’s “So Many Roads, So Many Trains,” Sid Selvidge’s folky “Mama You Don’t Mean Me No Good,” and the pure soul of Phil Durham’s “Steal Away” attest to other strands of a traditional music with almost too many tributaries to count.

That doesn’t mean good things last forever. Don McMinn’s “Junior’s Place” pays tribute to the late icon Junior Kimbrough and his namesake club, but it’s the splendid trio of closing cuts on Goin’ Down South Vol. 2 that combine joy with loss most compellingly. The late Mose Vinson’s barrelhouse piano “Rock ‘n’ Roll Blues” nails an immensely pleasurable pre-war style few get right anymore, while the late Big Lucky Carter’s album-closing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is a patient hymn to a proud genre and culture that will likely never be as strong again. In between, Hemphill returns with “Lord, Help the Poor and Needy,” offering homemade percussion and one simple voice. Hemphill is still with us, of course, but in this context she sounds like a last link to a passing treasure.

Though it’s a pretty compelling listen the first time through, when you want to hear how the song/artist match-ups fare, Fried Glass Onions: Memphis Meets the Beatles (Inside Sounds; Grade: B) probably isn’t as durable a record as its straight-blues colleague. As the title implies, Fried Glass Onions is a collection of Beatles covers from a diverse array of local artists. What’s most interesting is that, instead of copying the Beatles style, most of the artists here make a conscious effort to infuse the songs with their own style and that of Memphis itself. The notion, as label chief Eddie Dattel explicates in the record’s interesting liner notes, is to bring out the latent Memphis influences in the Beatles music itself. The artists who do this most forcefully are perhaps the most interesting. There’s the Steve Cropper guitar that laces Bob Simon & Eddie Harrison’s take on Let It Be‘s “Two of Us,” the swampy blues treatment that Daddy Mack Orr gives to “Get Back,” the smooth Hi soul arrangement Bertram Brown works through on “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl,” and the Staple Singers bassline that the Memphis All-Stars add to “Drive My Car.” Other artists either play it straight or are more subtle in their Memphisms. Gospel singer Jackie Johnson takes Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird” to church a little, and listen for the wisps of organ and bass evoking Booker T. & the MGs near the end of John Kilzer’s “Across the Universe.”

E-mail: herrington@memphisflyer.com

If you’ve been curious about all the new local soul and hip-hop acts you’ve heard or read about but haven’t been able to check out, Tonya Dyson-Jerry is determined to make it easy for you. Dyson-Jerry, whose Chiku Urban Marketing & Promotions was responsible for bringing confrontational hip-hop duo Dead Prez to the Complex last year for a great show, has helped assemble many of the scene’s best and brightest for Soul Aid: A Tsunami Relief Benefit, which will be held Sunday, February 20th, at Isaac Hayes Reloaded.

Dyson-Jerry’s own group, the duo Men-Nefer, will be on the bill, along with comrades Carmen and reigning Mid-South Grammy Showcase winners Will Graves & Soul. All three groups traffic in smooth neo-soul underscored by elements of gospel and/or jazz. For a different spin, there’s Tim Terry, whose blend of Prince, Marvin Gaye, and Tony Toni Toné on last year’s eponymous debut album proved the most convincing slice of contemporary local soul in years. For something else entirely, there’s the hip-hop collective Iron Mic Coalition, a collection of four groups that perform together and whose varied styles are united only by how out-of-step they are with the dominant Memphis rap sound. The IMC and group members Kontrast should both have debut albums on the horizon. Wrapping it all up is a new act, Nu Soul Project, which features Candice Ashir, onetime female vocal foil in Free Sol who has recently split from that group. You couldn’t ask for a more concise overview of this burgeoning scene than you’ll get Sunday at Isaac Hayes.

I didn’t spot Marc Broussard on the Grammy telecast Sunday night, but the New Orleans-based blue-eyed soul singer sure would have fit in. Judging from his album Carencro, Broussard is something of a cross between Joss Stone — the “old-soul’s voice in hot, young bod” who paid tribute to Janis Joplin at the awards — and such Grammy-approved radio soft-rock acts as John Mayer and Maroon 5. He sounds a little more like the former, whereas I’d prefer the latter. (Okay, I don’t like Mayer’s music, but he sure seems like a smart, witty guy when he isn’t singing.) There’s no denying that there’s a considerable talent at work here. Don’t be surprised if you see Broussard on the big stage someday, belting out classics in tribute to some aging or deceased soul star who’s getting a Lifetime Achievement Award. Broussard will be at Newby’s Thursday, February 17th, with David Ryan Harris.

— Chris Herrington

A sad but true confession: I have a panic attack anytime someone says, “You really need to listen to [insert name of contemporary blues artist I’ve never heard of here].” As anyone who has ever sat through a preliminary round of the International Blues Challenge can attest, it’s impossible to imagine that many of today’s artists have ever heard the blues, let alone lived it. It is therefore with great surprise and absolute joy that I recommend Precious Bryant, a 60-year-old should-be blues diva who’s playing Proud Larry’s in Oxford on Friday, February 18th. Bryant, whose record Fool Me Good was produced by the North Mississippi All Stars’ road manager Amos Harvey, doesn’t have a terribly powerful voice. But her dry delivery is the perfect complement to her one-chord boogies and East Texas-meets-Piedmont rambles. Elements of Basin Street jazz creep in when Bryant covers the Peggy Lee classic “Fever,” but, generally speaking, Fool Me Good sounds like a blues record produced in a vacuum, influenced by Lightnin’ Hopkins, perhaps, and nobody else.

And now it’s time for another curmudgeonly, nearly begrudging recommendation. The appeal of John Eddie — the man who would be Springsteen — escapes me almost entirely. Oh sure, he may have been a hit at the Stone Pony, the Boss may have jumped up on stage to play with him, and Jim (“do no wrong”) Dickinson may have shown some interest in him, but I remain largely unimpressed. It will be a cold, cold day before I get excited about a songwriter whose best commentary on aging is “turning 40 f*&king sucks.” True enough perhaps, but too pedestrian to even be boilerplate. I’ll have to admit a soft spot for a song called “Low Life,” a hard-driving tune about a fellow who takes strippers to breakfast and spends all his rent money on a KISS tattoo. Also, “Play Some Skynyrd” is a song whose appeal may escape the general masses, but for anybody who’s ever picked up a guitar and done their best to entertain ungrateful drunks in a shithole bar in Nowheresville, U.S.A., it’s positively endearing. Eddie will be joined by The Blair Combest Band at the Hi-Tone Café Wednesday, February 23rd.