Being introduced to the blues can be an intimidating task; where to start?
This four disc, 100 song collection takes you on a journey from the earliest days of the blues to the vintage and influential 50s and 60s. In between the historic early recordings from Alberta Hunter and Ma Rainey and rock progenitors Mike Bloomfield and Jimmy Witherspoon, you’re going to hear just about every shade of blue, acoustic and electric, via voice, piano and guitar, and from every part of America from Chicago to New Orleans, California, Kansas City and New York.
The great thing about this anthology is that not only do you get de rigueur artists like Blind Lemon Jefferson (“Gone Dead On You Blues”), Bessie Smith with Louis Armstrong (“St. Louis Blues”), Leadbelly (“Ella Speed”), Arthur Crudup (“That’s All Right”), T-Bone Walker (“Call It Stormy Monday”), and Guitar Slim (“The Things That I Used To Do”), but there is a plethora of obscure artists that fit right into the musical mosaic. I mean, how many Nappy Brown, Little Bobby Harris, Griffin Brothers, Jazz Gillum and Alfred Lewis songs do you know? Well, you’ve got some here, and they all fit right in.
The other joy about this collection is to figure out which genre of the blues that you might want to dig deeper into. Some electric guitar blues like BB King? Boogie blues by Lightnin’ Hopkins? Chicago blues by Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters? Kansas City blues by Big Joe Turner? Or even the roots of rock from John Lee Hooker, James Cotton, Memphis Slim, Bo Diddley and Canned Heat? This boxed set is filled with musical rabbit holes; follow the trails well!