Guitarist and songwriter Jim Stephens designs his albums as a curator or tour guide. By any standard you can name—musical style, lyrical mood, production, instrumentation—this album goes all over the place; it’s a blues album with elements of rock, R&B, jazz and hip-hop. But the title acknowledges that it’s meant to show the many different shades of blues—so if it doesn’t always sound like it all belongs on the same album — that’s the point.

Though there are a few traditionally-styled tracks here, Stephens seems especially interested in the blues as a vehicle for protest and commentary. The jazz-influenced “Mississippi Flu” calls out shameful events post-Katrina, the title reference to Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” “is surely not accidental. “Salem,” featuring the young Canadian bluesman Boy Wonder, is likely the first blues tune about the persecution of women in that Massachusetts city; while “We Will Overcome” gives the old spiritual a modern update. Since Stephens doesn’t sing and this isn’t a guitar-centric album, he lets his collaborators take much of the spotlight. A version of Jimmy Reed’s “Baby What You Want Me to Do” (with a few seldom-heard lyrics) spotlights singer Ariel Skye with a killer rhythm section of drummer Eddie Christmas, bassist Reggie Scanlan and keyboardist Ivan Neville.

The real surprise here is Stephens’ skills as a producer, as he creates a different sonic landscape for each track. On “Box Car Blues” he layers sax and harmonica for a swirling trainyard effect; it turns a standard Chicago blues into a film-noir experience. In contrast, “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” also featuring Skye, has the lush L.A. production of a vintage Bonnie Raitt record. And the rap-infused “Marchin’ On” pulls out all the stops to create a future-church sound. You may not have thought the blues needed its own studio wizard, but it’s got one now.