Ali Farka Toure - The River (1990)

Ali Ibrahim “Farka” Touré (October 31, 1939 – March 7, 2006) was a Malian singer and guitarist, and one of the African continent’s most internationally renowned musicians. His music is widely regarded as representing a point of intersection of traditional Malian music and its North American cousin, the blues. The belief that the latter is...

Jimmy Reed Blues Masters: The Very Best Of

Recorded between 1953 & 1963. Includes liner notes by Cub Koda, Steve Woolard. Though Jimmy Reed's name will always be eclipsed by more innovative and charismatic artists like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, his simple, straightforward music is--in a way--what the blues is all about. As Rhino's definitive VERY BEST OF proves, Reed knew...

Mance Lipscomb – Texas Sharecropper and Songster

Arhoolie's Texas Sharecropper & Songster is a recording made in 1960, during the blues revival. Prior to the blues revival, Mance Lipscomb was an unknown, and his discovery was one of the positive byproducts of the revival. He was a great country-blues man, and this is perhaps his greatest effort, capturing him running through a number...

Skip James - Complete Early Recordings (1930)

The eighteen songs presented on this CD may, if allowed, cause the listener to re-define their standards of what personal expression in music might be. Skip James' music has been called strange and idiosyncratic. If these terms are adequate to describe sound that resists all attempts to pigeonhole and categorize, than perhaps they apply....

John Lee Hooker - Blues for Big Town

This John Lee Hooker set is volume 38 in the Charly Blues Masterworks series, which shows no sign of slowing down. There are 16 tracks recorded between the late 1940s and the early '60s; these sides make up some of the less obvious choices in a best-of -- and that's a good thing. How many more comps do we need with the same versions of "Boogie...

Billie Holiday – Songs For Distingue Lovers

Songs for Distingué Lovers is a stereo album by jazz singer Billie Holiday released in 1957 on Verve Records, originally a ten-inch record, catalogue MGV 8257. It was recorded at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles from January 3 to January 9, 1957, and produced by Norman Granz. This was Holiday's fifth studio album. Granz and Holiday chose familiar...

Eric Clapton - Money and Cigarettes (1983)

Eric Clapton returned in February of 1983 with his second studio release of the eighties. Money and Cigarettes ranks somewhere in the middle of his vast catalogue as it is not as good as many of the releases which preceded it but is better than many that were to come. To his credit he assembles a small but talented band to support him. Albert...

B.B.King - Lucille (1968)

In December 1967, B.B. King entered the studio with noted jazz producer Bob Thiele to record what eventually became LUCILLE. Named after King's guitar, this record finds B.B. adding some fresh ingredients to his already potent stew of traditional blues. With its biting brass and female back-up singers, "You Move Me So" is a funky, spiritual...

Stevie Ray Vaughan - Texas Flood

Texas Flood is the debut album of American blues musician Stevie Ray Vaughan and his band Double Trouble, released June 13, 1983 on Epic Records. The album was recorded in only three days, at Jackson Browne's personal recording studio, in 1982 since the band had been playing many live sets beforehand. More popular than any blues album in...

Charlie Musselwhite - Stone Blues (1968)

When people think of top white blues performers from the 60's, names like Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, John Mayall and Al Kooper come readily to mind. While those guys all have their place in history, so does Charlie Musselwhite. Musselwhite learned the blues straight from old timers like Homesick James and Robert Nighthawk on Maxwell...

Mississippi John Hurt - Today!

The '60s revived the careers of many early bluesmen, but none so dramatically as that of Mississippi John Hurt. Hurt recorded a few brilliant sides in the '20s, then ostensibly disappeared off the face of the Earth until folk musician Tom Hoskins went looking for him in 1963. At the age of 70, Hurt began one of the greatest comebacks in music...

Otish Rush Right Place, Wrong Time (1976)

This 1971 Capitol Records session was almost not released at all. Chicago blues guitarist and singer extraordinaire Otis Rush cut "Right Place, Wrong Time" in February of that year, and Capitol immediately decided against issuing it. It sucked, apparently. And Capitol knew about music, you see; they didn't like the Beatles and tampered heavily...

B.B. King Live at the Regal (1965)

As has been noted, this is one of the essential albums, one of the records that everyone is supposed to have like John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, like Robert Johnson, like the music Billie Holiday made with Lester Young for Columbia, like Louis's Hot 5s and Hot 7s, like Elvis's Sun Sessions. Beyond that, this is something that has become...

Buddy Guy - Damn Right I've Got The Blues (1991)

 This lasts about 54 minutes. 4 tracks feature horns. There are three original Guy tracks. All are great. One- title track, 2- a slow moody instrumental dedicated to Stevie Ray Vaughan, 3-one of Guy's best songs and captures some ferocious guitar playing for 5 minutes and is called Too Broke Too Spend the Night. If you wanted to, you...

Mississippi John Hurt Avalon Blues: The Complete 1928 OKeh Recordings

 This cd, which represents the complete 1928 recordings of Mississippi John Hurt is truly blues everlasting. It is amazing to realize when listening to this that it was recorded that long ago. The quality of the songs, John Hurt's voice and his guitar playing skill are all superb. As other's have mentioned John Hurt was born in 1892,...

Leadbelly - King of the 12-String Guitar

"King Of The 12-String Guitar" is not the definitive Huddie Ledbetter-collection, of course...Leadbelly recorded literally hundreds of sides. And it isn't quite the best single-disc compilation of his either (that would be "The Best Of Leadbelly" from Cleopatra, or "Take This Hammer" from the "When The Sun Goes Down"-series). But this 1991...

Muddy Waters: Hard Again

In 1976, after spending nearly 30 years in the music business, Muddy Waters broke with his long-time label Chess Records to sign with Blue Sky, a subsidiary of Columbia. Hard Again, his first outing for the company, was produced by Johnny Winter, and it is considered by many to be the finest studio effort of Waters’ distinguished career....

Junior Wells: Hoodoo Man Blues

Hoodoo Man Blues is not only Junior Well's initial LP appearance, it is damn near the first LP by a Chicago blues band. Chess and a few other labels had issued 45's by Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howling Wolf, Jimmy Reed, Elmore James, etc. but virtually no one had tried to capture the Chicago blues sound free of limitations of juke-box/airplay...

Son House: Original Delta Blues (1998)

This Columbia Legacy reissue of the 1965 release is one of the few recordings available of one of the blues' founding fathers. It contains some of his best songs, which have unsurprisingly become classics of the Delta blues genre: "Death Letter," "Preachin' Blues," "Levee Camp Moan," "Pony Blues," and "Downhearted Blues" are all here. Though...

Elmore James - Blues After Hours (1961)

Blues After Hours, originally released on LP by Crown in 1960, was Elmore James' first long-playing record. Made up of singles released on the Modern imprints Meteor and Flair, for many it was their first introduction to the fiery slide guitarist, and the crunchy garage sound of James' arrangements (backed variously by the Broomdusters in...

Freddie King - Burglar (1974)

This album is a little bit different then what I had expected and I couldn't be happier. It has turned into one of those CD's you have trouble getting out of my CD player. I've heard lots about Freddie and what a great blues guitar player he was and being a big fan of Texas blues, I was eager to learn more about Freddie King, so I bought...

ALBERT KING: Live Wire Blues Power

Recorded live at the Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco. Originally released on Stax (2003). By 1968, after years of regional success and low-profile gigging, Albert King had attained significant popularity among both blues and rock audiences. The 1967 release of his Stax debut BORN UNDER A BAD SIGN had achieved crossover success, and he...

Clapton Chronicles - The Best of Eric Clapton

If this were your first exposure to Eric Clapton, a bit of bewilderment would be in order. This is the legendary guitar icon? This is (as his early apostles once proclaimed) God? Ranging from the mid-'80s through the late '90s, The Clapton Chronicles owes less to the groundbreaking blues-rock of Clapton's '60s and '70s classics than to the...

Crossroads (1986) DVDRIP

The legend of Mississippi blues master Robert Johnson has served as a fountainhead for generations of blues and rock musicians, as well as a powerful fable for the dark, often violent mysteries of delta blues. Johnson's mythic deal with the Devil, in exchange for his extraordinary musical gifts, has become a fixture in blues lore and an example...

The Search For Robert Johnson DVDRIP (1992)

#  Actors: Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, John Hammond, Gayle Dean Wardlow, Robert Burton McCormick # Directors: Chris Hunt # Producers: Chris Hunt, Caz Gorham # Format: Black & White, Color, DVD, NTSC # Language: English (Stereo) This DVD offers a wealth of information about the life of Robert Johnson. We meet a girlfriend of Robert...

MATT ''GUITAR'' MURPHY: Way Down South

The dazzling guitarist has recorded very sparingly as a leader over the course of his long career, preferring the relative anonymity of sideman duties behind Memphis Slim, James Cotton, and the Blues Brothers. But he acquits himself most competently here, mixing blues, funk, R&B, and a little jazz into his sparkling fretwork. His brother...