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 ...
Narada's The Narada Wilderness Collection is as lush as the mountain pine that graces its cover. Sixteen tracks from as many different artists fill out its margins, and most draw their inspiration from wood, water, and the environment. Though David Arkenstone's "Yosemite" doesn't really go anywhere, the South American rhythms of Bernardo Rubaja's ...
Another essential T-Bone Walker collection, Complete Imperial Recordings: 1950-1954 is a two-disc dish with 52 sensational tracks from his stint at Lew Chudd's Imperial Records label. Whether waxing with his own jump blues unit in L.A. or Dave Bartholomew's hard-drivers in New Orleans, Walker always stayed true to his vision, and the proof was in ...
The Best of Guitar Shorty collects key tracks from the Texas guitarist's JSP album, My Way or the Highway (1991), his three albums for Black Top Records, Topsy Turvy (1993), Get Wise to Yourself (1995), and Roll Over, Baby (1998), and his single album from Evidence Records, I Go Wild!, which came out in 2001. In spite of all these different ...
One of the first comeback salvos that the veteran pianist fired after suffering the slings and arrows of anonymity for much too long. Typically delectable in a subtle, understated manner, Brown eases through a very attractive program. ~ Bill Dahl, All Music Guide
In 1969, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and vocalist Al Kooper added "talent scout" to his already lengthy résumé on the follow-up to the highly successful Super Session disc, which had been issued the previous year. One major difference between the two, however, is the relatively unknown cast featured on Kooper Session. Both albums again ...
With his gospel-inflected vocals, full of melismatic swoops and sighs, and a penchant for speeded-up jump blues songs with strong sax lines, Roy Brown created the very template for early rock & roll in the late '40s and early '50s. His first single, an easy, natural reading of "Good Rockin' Tonight" on DeLuxe Records (which Wynonie Harris turned ...
Bonnie Raitt, who played such an integral role in Charles Brown's successful comeback, guests on two tracks on the pianist's Bullseye Blues encore, Someone to Love, which isn't quite the tour de force that his previous outing was, but is eminently solid nonetheless. Danny Caron and Clifford Solomon once again shine in support of their leader. ~ ...
Rhino/Atlantic presents Big Joe Turner's The Definitive Blues Collection, a double-CD sampler containing 30 singles and EPs recorded between April 1951 and September 1959, during Turner's second decade of recording activity. Ideally, this would have been a companion volume to Atlantic's chronologically scrambled 2005 compilation The Rhythm & Blues ...
One of three simultaneously released budget-priced Alligator blues compilations (the other two are Crucial Guitar Blues and Crucial Chicago Blues), Crucial Harmonica Blues is a 12-track anthology of the Chicago-based label's most popular and legendary harp artists. The track list reads like a who's who of harmonica with James Cotton, Big Walter ...
Let's face it, Big Mama Thornton will always be chiefly recalled for her growling 1952 reading of the Jerry Leiber-Mike Stoller classic "Hound Dog." But the other 17 sides on this collection of her 1952-1957 output for Don Robey's Peacock Records aren't exactly makeweight. Thornton's mighty roar was backed by the jumping combos of Johnny Otis and ...
This reissue from Collectables combines two classic Joe Turner Atlantic sides, Joe Turner and Rockin' the Blues, originally released in 1957 and 1958, respectively. Featuring 28 tracks, including a number of R&B staples that crossed over into the pop realm: "Shake Rattle & Roll," "Flip Flop & Fly," "Honey Hush," "Chains of Love," and more. This is ...
Trains were a major industrial force for over a hundred years in America. Starting around 1830, they became key components in how the country moved goods, people, and information across previously unimaginable distances. They also provided themes and metaphors for popular songs and music, many of which also drew underlying structure and dynamics ...
Despite its poor sound quality and shoddy packaging, Hollywood's Rhythm & Blues Christmas is an entertaining 20-track collection of familiar R&B Christmas numbers, including Charles Brown's "Merry Christmas Baby," Freddie King's "Christmas Tears," Bill Doggett's "Joy to the World" and Hank Ballard's "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." It's not ...
Probably the most amazing thing about this record is how fresh the music sounds. In a genre that at best has been recycling its sounds for over 50 years, it's exciting to hear that indeed, there is a lot of blues piano music being made that is vibrant, individual, and yes, living. While this album has its share of "dum da dum da dum" repetition, ...
This four-disc Proper box lives up to its name with four CDs containing 99 cuts of pure honking joy by some of the most well-known bar walkers of the last century, along with some of the least known. There are multiple cuts by tenormen like Illinois Jacquet, Red Prysock, Wild Bill Moore, Arnett Cobb, Little Willie Jackson, Sam Taylor, Big Jay ...
The barbed-wire vocals and slashing guitar of Mississippi-bred Smokey Wilson blend well with harpist Rod Piazza and company on this 1983 set first out on Murray Bros. Records. Not quite as stunning as his more recent work for Bullseye Blues, but definitely has some incendiary moments. ~ Bill Dahl, All Music Guide
Please Come Home for Christmas, a King reissue from 1961, finds blues crooner Charles Brown trying his hand at Christmas tunes. This set has become a staple for listeners who seek beyond the traditional Nat King Cole or Bing Crosby holiday fare. Brown croons laid-back renditions of "It's Christmas Time," "Christmas Comes But Once a Year," "Let's ...
A title as lofty as The Very Best of T-Bone Walker begs the question, "Does this CD really contain the seminal Texas bluesman's very best work?" And in fact, this 2000 release (which spans 1945-1957), does contain some of Walker's finest, most essential recordings of the '40s and '50s. It isn't the only collection focusing on Walker's recordings ...
Although former child R&B star Esther Phillips really hit her mature peak in the '60s, commercially she had a hard time finding a niche. "Release Me," her uptown R&B version of a country song, made the pop Top Ten in 1962. But she only dented the charts occasionally over the course of the next decade, despite recording frequently in a number of ...
This was the most unusual, and probably the most difficult to assemble of MCA's Chess Box series, mostly because of the unusual nature of Willie Dixon's contribution to Chess Records. To be sure, Dixon rates a place in the history of the label right alongside that of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter, but his role was more subtle than ...
This is a righteous 21-track collection culled from the Rhino triple-disc set issued in the 1990s. Certainly all the well-known singles are here, such as "Shake, Rattle and Roll" and "Corrina, Corrina," Leiber & Stoller's "The Chicken and the Hawk," and Turner's own "Oke-She-Moke-She-Pop," "Flip, Flop, and Fly," and "Honey Hush." But this set goes ...
Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton was part of the American Folk Blues Festival revue which toured Europe in 1965, so when it was time to record this session on October 20 at Wessex Studio in London, she had a crack impromptu blues band at her disposal, including a young Buddy Guy on guitar, Fred Below on drums, Eddie Boyd on piano and organ, and ...
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