Electric Delta Blues

Calling an album one the best in this particular genre, Chicago blues, is a pretty big move. There are plenty of masters of this particular form, and the success of several different record companies recording the genre over the years has assured no shortage of material. Something just comes...

Rhino's double-disc 1991 set The Ultimate Collection (1948-1990) falls just short of the promise of its title, losing its focus toward the end of the set. That said, it comes close enough to satisfy, particularly because John Lee Hooker had such a long, convoluted discography, recording for...

Hooker's voluminous output for Vee-Jay Records is scattered across numerous compilations. This double CD contains 31 songs spanning the mid-'50s to the mid-'60s, and is probably the most extensive and satisfying retrospective of his Vee-Jay work (at least domestically)....

These are his '60s Fire sessions. It fits into the second stage of his recording career, with Look on Yonder's Wall and Coal Black Mare. ~ Barry Lee Pearson, All Music Guide

Too Bad Jim is cut from the same cloth as its predecessor, Bad Luck City. It features R.L. Burnside fronting a small juke joint combo, tearing through some greasy lues. However, Too Bad Jim is the better album, simply from a performance standpoint. Burnside sounds more relaxed and the band...

An acoustic date cut on February 9, 1960, this finds Hooker in top-notch form, running through a dozen performances in his instantly identifiable style. Except for three solo turns, Hooker is ably backed by bassist Sam Jones and drummer Louis Hayes, both wisely following John Lee's...

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 lues purists griped because it was the first recording where the previously acoustic McDowell played electric guitar, his lines are so stark,...

No, it's not the definitive collection, covering just Hooker's time with Vee-Jay from the mid-'50s to the mid-'60s. In fact, it's not even the definitive collection of the Vee-Jay years, although with 24 tracks, it's pretty long for a single-disc retrospective of...

An intensely powerful singer and guitarist, Elmore James did not start his recording career until he was 33, and he only lived to be 45, but he made a very strong impact during his dozen years on records. Some of his finest work was cut for the Fire label during 1959-1961, roughly half of which...

Widespread respect for Earl Hooker, one of the unsung giants of the lues, is long overdue, and his rather limited available discography belies a great original talent. P-Vine Japan has attempted to put this right with Blues Guitar: The Chief and Age Sessions 1959-1963, an intelligent and...

Plays Robert and Robert finds Robert Lockwood, Jr. in a beautifully recorded solo context (cut in France in 1982 for Black & Blue), doing what he does best -- his own songs and those of his legendary mentor, Robert Johnson. Purists may quiver at Lockwood's use of the 12-string guitar as...

While Charlie Musselwhite has always been an adventurous musician -- take into consideration his fine Cuban inflected Continental Drifter, the Americana drenched One Night In America, and the rollicking ock and soul on Sanctuary -- the Delta of his upbringing has never been left out of the mix...

Don't Turn Me from Your Door comprises a set of 1953 sessions that were originally released in 1963 and later in 1972, under the title Detroit Special. Despite its twisted historical background, this is fine, first-rate Hooker. A few tracks feature the support of guitarist/vocalist Eddie...

John Lee Hooker was a truly unique performer. His early music was both primitive (looking back towards the irregular chorus lengths of country blues) and futuristic at the same time, hinting at 1960s rock in the late 1940s. Born in the Mississippi Delta in 1917, Hooker did not record until he...

Nine songs recorded double-quick in one session, with Lowell Fulson on lead guitar on most of it -- the rare embellishment on a Hooker release makes for unusually complex and rewarding listening, instrumentally speaking, beneath Hooker's ominous vocals. The textures on this reissue are very...

This 27-track compilation concentrates almost exclusively on the recordings Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup made between 1946 and 1954 with band backup including drums, excluding any of the recordings he made prior to his first such session in 1946. So it's not the top pick for a Crudup...

A beautifully packaged edition of Junior Kimbrough's first album, recorded live in the converted church that replaced Kimbrough's original wooden shack juke joint. The lineup is Kimbrough on vocals and guitar, Garry Burnside on bass, and Kenny Malone on drums (it's a family...

One of the most individual of all blues performers, John Lee Hooker was a master at jamming endlessly on one chord. As a singer, his voice was distinctive and often gruff while his guitar playing was both ahead of and way behind the times. It was as if he were a bluesman from 1920 who continued...