I still call them albums even though I’ve purchased exactly zero vinyl records in a decade and only one CD this year — everything else is digitally purchased:

Levon Helm Band: MerleFest Ramble: This is a live set, issued through the very cool/interesting FestivaLink website, that covers Levon’s gig at the even cooler MerleFest earlier this year. I enjoyed this recording even more than I liked Levon’s well-received Dirt Farmer album, probably because I’m a softie for the Band-era Levon Helm. There is so much energy in this performance, which is remarkable considering that Helm is closing in on 70 fast. All of the supporting players — his daughter Amy, Little Sammy Davis, and guests including Bruce Hornsby — are first-rate as well.

Lucinda Williams: Little Honey: I’ve always been a bit torn about Williams. I really liked her first two albums, and her third, “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road,” is a masterpiece that is on my very short Desert Island Disks list. She’s probably sick of being reminded about that album, and her subsequent efforts turned introspective and moody to the point of sappy self-pity.

But she also is a disciple of tone, and some of the best electric guitar I’ve heard anywhere gets played (by others) on Lucinda Williams albums. This album really delivers on that front.

On this effort, Williams goes rawer and louder than she has in a long time, both in the construction of her music and the writing of her lyrics. If you don’t blush a little when you first listen to the lyrics of “Honey Bee,” for example, you are incapable of blushing. And she grinds the blues and gospel, throwing in some acoustic softies but not overwhelming the album with them.

This album ends with the weirdest cover I can imagine: AC/DC’s “It’s a Long Way to the Top.” Critics are knocking Williams a bit for doing that but I think it’s great. There aren’t too much artists who could go from that to deep folk-chick sensitivity, but Williams can.