A double-disc box set containing everything Robert Johnson ever recorded, The Complete Recordings is essential listening, but it is also slightly problematic. The problems aren't in the music itself, of course, which is stunning and the fidelity of the recordings is the best it ever has been or ever will be. Instead, it's in the track sequencing. ...
Given Hooker's unpredictable timing and piss-poor track record recording with bands, this 1965 one-off session for the jazz label Impulse! would be a recipe for disaster. But with Panama Francis on drums, Milt Hinton on bass, and Barry Galbraith on second guitar, the result is some of the best John Lee Hooker material with a band that you're ...
Muddy's "unplugged" album was cut in September of 1963 and still sounds fresh and vital today. It was Muddy simply returning to his original style on a plain acoustic guitar in a well-tuned room with Willie Dixon on string bass, Clifton James on drums, and Buddy Guy on second acoustic guitar. The nine tracks are divvied up between full rhythm ...
What can be said about yet another John Lee Hooker greatest-hits collection!? Not only is the music consumer loaded down with these discs, but frankly, most are very similar in content. The main thing to look for when purchasing a compilation of "The Hook" is a trust-worthy label. Hip-O's Definitive Collection provides one such example, complete ...
John Lee Hooker's recordings for Virgin/Point Blank may have varied in quality, but never in formula. Once The Healer earned reams of praise and, more importantly, solid sales upon its 1989 release, it was pretty much set in stone that every future Hooker album would be painstakingly constructed and boast a plethora of superstar cameos. The guest ...
There have been countless collections of Muddy Waters' classic Chess material released over the years, but Chess began to whittle down the domestic catalog toward the late '90s. The triple-disc Chess box remained in print, but they added two single-disc collections that each covered a specific period in Waters' career at Chess. Then, in 2001, MCA ...
There are scores of Muddy Waters compilations out there, and while it might be overreaching a bit to call this 24-track single-disc set definitive, it is still a mighty good selection, including as it does all of Waters' major singles from Chess Records and its Aristocrat Records imprint between the years 1948 and 1964 along with a single track ...
There is no doubt that all of the tracks on this collection are indeed blues classics. B.B. King's "The Thrill Is Gone," Muddy Waters' "Got My Mojo Working," and Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" are just three of the signature songs found here. With so many blues anthologies on the market, though, this compilation suffers for its brief length, and ...
A double-disc box set containing everything Robert Johnson ever recorded, The Complete Recordings is essential listening, but it is also slightly problematic. The problems aren't in the music itself, of course, which is stunning and the fidelity of the recordings is the best it ever has been or ever will be. Instead, it's in the track sequencing. ...
Gathering the best of his all-too-brief recording career, You Better Run: The Essential Junior Kimbrough includes most of his best-known songs, including "Done Got Old," "Meet Me in the City," "You Better Run," and "All Night Long." The collection does a good job of representing each of Kimbrough's albums, ranging from the rough-and-ready sound of ...
When R.L. Burnside and the rest of the Fat Possum confederation emerged from the northern Mississippi hills in the early '90s, they gave contemporary blues a much-needed shot in the ass, reminding everyone that the genre really wasn't so much about pyrotechnic guitar histrionics as it was about getting folks to hit the dancefloor, and once there, ...
This three-disc, 70-track (30 of them new to the CD era) collection of murder ballads and disaster songs originally released on commercial 78s between 1913 and 1938 is, in spite of the archaic song structures and often crude sonic qualities on display, strangely contemporary in tone and feel, maybe because we've always been drawn to the scene of ...
This 16-track single-disc compilation gathers up the best-known tracks from the two original volumes of King of the Delta Blues Singers for a nice entry-level collection of Robert's best. Utilizing the latest in remastering technology, these recordings have never sounded quite this clear and full-bodied before, and the difference between this and ...
The first 20-bit remastering of any of Muddy's late career work for Johnny Winter's Blue Sky label is of considerable interest. The fact that, in the wake of the earlier Blues Sky best-of disc, there's enough material to do another 60-minute-plus collection, also speaks well for this catalog. The clarity of the Super Bit Mapping audio brings out a ...
Although he had been playing for years, it wasn't until the 1990s that R.L. Burnside's raw electrified Delta blues were heard by a wide audience. His new fans celebrated his wild, unbridled energy, so it made sense for him to team with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the warped indie rock band that's all about energy. However, the very purists ...
The importance of Muddy Waters' 1977 album Hard Again cannot be overstated, and its place as a near universal favorite in the Muddy Waters catalog is no mistake. Recorded in the last decade of his life, Hard Again was the first studio collaboration between Waters and guitarist Johnny Winter, who acted as producer on his last four recordings -- the ...
The source for this 1964 live performance appears to be Lippmann and Rau, the sponsors of Europe's American Folk Blues Festival. Considering that Chess Records never recorded Muddy's live set during this era, this disc is priceless. Otis Spann is at the piano, George Smith plays sax, Sammy Lawhorn is the second guitarist, and Francis Clay and ...
Black Snake Moan, the 2007 movie that stars Samuel L. Jackson as a God-fearing, bent broken soul and tortured former bluesman, with Christina Ricci playing the town tramp he feels he has to redeem by any means necessary, is a wildly provocative look at spiritual and cultural mores -- and is sure to set some folks on edge. The soundtrack that ...
John Lee Hooker never abandoned his raw, gut bucket Mississippi-Delta-comes-to-the-city approach to the blues throughout his fifty-year career, and if he got a tad bit slicker towards the end of that career, it was only a tad and only by degree. There are innumerable Hooker collections on the market, and this two-disc set wouldn't be anything ...
This reissue of the original Capitol landmark from 1969 adds ten tunes. The performance is classic and retains all of its spiky edginess. Even though blues purists griped because it was the first recording where the previously acoustic McDowell played electric guitar, his lines are so stark, spare, and jagged that the fullness and volume the ...
An essential Tommy Johnson collection, Document's Complete Recorded Works (1928-1929) features 17 songs from the Delta blues pioneer, including two alternative takes and a pair of previously unissued songs known respectively as "Morning Prayer Blues" and "Boogaloosa Blues." Culled from the great Delta musician's recording sessions in Memphis and ...
John Lee Hooker won many new listeners with his 1989 star-studded comeback album The Healer, and his 1992 studio album "Boom Boom" was designed as an introduction to his classic songs for this new audience. It wasn't that The Healer or its 1991 follow-up Mr. Lucky avoided either Hooker's signature boogie or several of his signature tunes, but they ...
While it's not quite as relentlessly exciting as Ass Pocket of Whiskey, primarily because the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion isn't along to provide support, Mr. Wizard is another set of blistering electric blues from R.L. Burnside, highlighted by his stomping guitar, powerful voice and cheerfully vulgar lyrics. ~ Thom Owens, All Music Guide
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