Late bloomers in the contemporary music scene offer the most distinctive works, and there are a lot of them who have become popular. Great music is being made by people of all ages today, and age groups here do not relate since most things are available on YouTube and other sites. Some discovered playing late while others started young, stopped and then rediscovered their playing roots.

One person who has wide experience of the world is the artist Dean Maser. His road was longer than others had, but he made his way back into making music after attending a hootenanny open mic session, which led to the making of Delphinium CD. Lucky are those who have accessed the album.

Maser has wandered around a bit, and he is entirely within the tradition of American blues minstrelsy, with many greats coming before him. There are many masters, and Dylan has been lately recognized with a Nobel in literature, a conundrum for all American music makers. Maser, though, has skipped into a unique space with a the visual and rural Gothic perspective in this album.

Delphinium defines his path into a world that has become legendary in America, defined by spiritualism and the great green plains and the distant mountains of the West. This title comes from the Delphinium flower, which grows in the months of June and July, a late blooming flower. Its range, though, is vast, from the mountain valleys down to grassland meadows.

He started out with church music, ukeleles and guitar and the song Kumbayah is deeply imprinted like a bad and unwanted tattoo on his soul. Perhaps it took those years away from music to make him shake of the early influence and come to see a real spirituality in nature and the world. He goes on to say that he really went for the prize in high school and ended up making a 3 record EP that not one person heard.

The artist blogs, too, and it is titled The Good Ancestor, a deep trawling of his musical roots and influences, imagined or otherwise. This is personal music history musicians should know. Thus this artist has fully awakened by taking in everything, and this is something reflected in this first full album.

He has also come into his own with the blues, and he and his band of traveling players named SoulShine are readying an eclectic album of this kind. Their influences range from Johnny Cash to ZZ Top, from Hendrix to Clapton, Dylan and BB King. And people should watch for it, because Maser and his group are seasoned musicians playing as a classic trio.

He recorded the album in studios in Boston and Minneapolis, with players coming from the Dakotas and Africa. His stand is all about making his influences come at as native to the album. Despite the eclecticism, all things that stand for the Blues are there, as defined by the first ditty ever dedicated to its source Old Man River.

Titles in the album include Strong Love, Heroes, Heart Be True and One Time. The list also features the title track, A Little Older and The 1 Second Miracle, which are excellent takes on the tradition. And De Blues is nothing if not traditional, about all things Christian and Biblical inspiration on American soil, about feelings so vast and deep that only tears can express them.