The great jazz singers are also the great storytellers. Last night, listening to Cassandra Wilson sing “Wichita Lineman”, that single, devastating couplet - "And I need you more than want you/And I want you for all time" - conjured up an individual's entire life story. Seamlessly traversing genres in fresh and creative ways, performing a set that juxtaposed Cesária Évora's “Angola” with a completely impromptu “A Foggy Day”, the Jackson, Mississippi vocalist, musician, songwriter and producer confirmed her own compelling storytelling gift.

Mavis Staples keeps on comin': with a contralto voice soaked in gospel and soul, she delivers consistently heart-warming music.

This is her second collaboration with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, a rocker with enough knowledge and taste to create a contemporary ambience in which Mavis can deliver classics such Washington Phillips’s spine-chilling religious classic “What are They Doing in Heaven Today” alongside Funkadelic’s secular lament “Can You Get to That”.

Lucinda Williams’s current tour might be billed as “intimate”, but anyone who has seen her perform before will know that intimacy tends to come with the ticket. It is true, however, that this pared-down format, in which she performs drummerless and accompanied – splendidly – by Doug Pettibone and David Sutton on guitars, pedal steel, bass and harmonies, brings the audience even closer to her extraordinary voice and unflinching words. In Edinburgh last night, the effect wasn’t “intimate” so much as visceral: at times it felt like placing a microscope over an open wound.

It is unfortunate that those who hate Deap Vally find it way easier to articulate why than those who love them. There’s little new in the bluesy, garage-rock riffs that pose and swagger their way through debut album Sistronix, and it’s not as if - on the evidence of the hidden a cappella track that closes off the album - they have the greatest voices. Even the two-piece, guitar and drums setup has been done before, with the White Stripes so obvious a reference point it would be negligent not to mention it.

Blue Öyster Cult: The Columbia Albums Collection

Hawkwind: Space Ritual

Leonard Cohen has been the king of melancholy ever since he set out on his slow journey through the dark side. Befriending the black dog means being aware of the finite nature of life at every moment. It’s also about relishing slowness. As he enjoys mature old age, Cohen now inhabits, with almost joyful resignation, the blue mood he has made his own – to the irritation of those who have dismissed him as a purveyor of self-indulgent bedsit blues.

Sometimes as a critic one cannot help pre-judging an album however hard one tries not to. I expected the worst of this all-star jamboree bag from TV's most haphazard interviewer, which mixes some Hootenanny turns with new recordings of old favourites by some of music's blandest and/or most irritating personalities. Yet apart from a few excruciating exceptions this is not a bad something-for-all album to stick on when the in-laws pitch up on Boxing Day.

The last time we reviewed Krystle Warren on theartsdesk one reader responded by suggesting that it couldn’t be long before this Missouri-born singer-songwriter was as big as Beyonce (although he didn’t use that exact phrase). Yet even a 2009 performance on Later with Jools Holland didn’t have the effect it sometimes has in being the first big step up for both an artist’s sales and credibility.

B B King: Ladies & Gentlemen…Mr B.B. King

Kieron Tyler