WITH no live music and specialist record shops closed, 2020 looked like it was going to be a wipe-out.

So who would have thought that so many excellent releases and reissues would have found their way into the hands of music fans, with 2020 the year that veterans released some great new albums.

They included soul artists such as Don Bryant with Your Love Is To Blame (Fat Possum),  Jerry “Swamp Dogg” William’s country-soul set Sorry You Couldn’t Make It (Joyful Noise) and Dan Penn’s Living On Mercy (Last Music Company).

But the surprise package was Dion’s Blues With Friends (KTBA), featuring a host of guests including Van Morrison, Jeff Beck and Bruce Springsteen, which received glowing reviews and major coverage in the music media.

Blues-wise, there was plenty on offer but the outstanding releases were Ace Record’s three-CD set of early John Lee Hooker recordings in Detroit — Documenting The Sensation: Recordings 1949-1952 — along with two volumes of West Coast 1960s blues Dirty Work Going On and If I Have To Wreck LA.

Weinerworld’s fourth box-set series Blues In The Alley is crammed with rare down-home blues 78s and 45s from Atlanta, Miami and the south-eastern states.

All are quality releases with extensive booklets to keep hardcore blues fans happy.

On the jazz side, Theolonius Monk’s Palo Alto (Impulse!) was one of the year’s highlights, featuring a concert by Monk in 1968 recorded at Palo Alto high school, while Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers’ Just Coolin’, recorded in 1959, had remained in the can but thankfully hard-bop fans were able to get their mitts on it when it was issued by Blue Note.

Rejoice (World Circuit) by South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela and Nigerian drummer Tony Allen was without doubt the world music/African jazz release of the year. It was the soundtrack of the summer, although it was tinged with sadness when Allen died in Paris as the set was topping the world-music charts.

There were plenty of 1960s and 1970s rock reissues too, notably Surrender to the Rhythm (Grapefruit) — three CDs-worth of London pub rock from the 1970s with the cream of the genre, among them Brinsley Schwarz, Dr Feelgood, Bees Make Honey, Graham Parker and Ducks Deluxe.

Rory Gallagher’s recording vaults saw two great releases: Check Shirt Wizard Live In ‘77 and the career-spanning Best Of on UMC, while Robert Plant’s post-Led Zeppelin career, which has established him as a major world-music champion and Americana artist, was covered on the two- CD Digging Deep: Subterranea on Rhino. It’s a must-have.

Roll on 2021 and the return of live music!