CDs, vinyl and downloads vied for attention almost every week during 2024. There was so much good music issued it was hard to keep up, but I’m not complaining!

On the rock front the Irish guitar hero Rory Gallagher’s double CD set culled from his 20-disc box set of BBC radio broadcasts The Best Of Rory Gallagher At The BBC (BBC Sessions) features Rory appearing on Radio One’s Sounds Of The ’70s and In Concert between 1973-1979. Easily the best hard core rock reissue album of 2024.

Fellow Irishman, Van Morrison released Live At  Orangefield (Orangefield Records) compiled from three sold-out shows played in August 2014, to mark the closure of his old secondary school in Belfast — the venue of his first public performance at Christmas 1959, leading a skiffle group on Lead Belly’s Midnight Special.

Van is on great form with a blues, ballads and Caledonia soul show played to an enthusiastic home crowd.

Blues wise Weinerworld’s Chicago Downhome Blues — The Beautiful Stuff featuring 15 tracks (on coloured vinyl) of 1940s/1950s era-defining electric blues which provide a pathway for budding blues fans to hear Muddy Waters’s recording of Rollin’ Stone from 1950 with spine tingling slide guitar — plus Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmy Rodgers and Elmore James at their peak in superb sound.

Muddy’s long time pianist Otis Spann recorded the tracks for Walking The Blues for Candid Records in 1960. When the label was sold they remained in the can until 1972. This vinyl album confirms my view that Spann was without doubt the greatest pianist of the postwar blues period.

Global music must haves included two releases of stunning African music. The Best Of Amadou & Mariam (Caroline International) is a career-spanning two-CD set from the Malian superstars, and for guitar freaks 100 per cent Sahara Guitar by the West African band Ethan DeL’Air on Sahel Sounds features desert blues guitar interplay at its very best.

Miles Davis’s Miles ’54 (Craft Recordings) features remastered sides from Miles who had returned to form following a spell in rehab. Waxed for Prestige in 1954 this double set was the best jazz release of 2024 with Reincarnations by Charles Mingus, (Candid Records) hot on its heels. These remastered tracks were cut in 1960 and are available for the first time in years.

Finally, two Americana albums. Can’t Steal My Fire: The Songs Of David Olney on New West had my finger on the replay button time and again. Olney was a brilliant songwriter who died in 2020. This set features Americana greats like Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Jimmy Dale Gilmore and Townes Van Zandt performing some of Olney’s best songs.

Joachim Cooder’s wonderful album Dreamers Motel (Temple Of Leaves) features his unique songs and instruments, plus dad Ry plays guitar.

Anyone who composes a track with the engrossing title Godspeed Little Children Of Fort Smith, Arkansas without it having appeared on a scratchy 78rpm disc is all right by me.