Recorded during a five-day sprint in Nashville, the Blackbird Diaries offers a rawer portrait of Dave Stewart - the producer, former Eurthymic and current member of Superheavy, with Mick Jagger - than you're likely ever to have heard. The nasty, lurching guitar that announces "So Long Ago," the album's opener, is the tip-off. The song name-checks blues greats Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside and Mississippi John Hurt, and signals the roots rock-arama that follows. Bob Dylan gets a co-write on the mid-tempo ballad "Worth the Waiting For," and Stewart essentially rewrites "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" to come up with "The Gypsy Girl and Me." Stewart is a shaky singer at best, but Stevie Nicks ("Cheaper Than Free"), Colbie Caillat ("Bulletproof Vest"), Martina McBride ("All Messed Up") and the marvelous Secret Sisters ("Country Wine") bolster him. A man of many musical guises, Stewart may finally have learned that sometimes just being yourself will do.

Listen to "Magic in the Blues":

“He Will Break Your Heart”

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."