West Side Soul ranks among many blues aficionados as one of Delmark Records' two 'desert island discs' from the 1960s along with Junior Wells' Hoodoo Man Blues. Both were fresh, spirited distillations of the blues [...]
Boss Blues Harmonica, released by the GRT Corporation in 1972, was at the time the most comprehensive collection of Little Walter's quintessential blues harmonica recordings ever compiled. It was, literally, the best of Little Walter [...]
Sam Cooke may be best remembered for his Top 40 hits and pioneering soul sounds, not to mention his gospel gems with the Soul Stirrers, but he had a profound gift for singing the blues, [...]
False Accusations was the first Robert Cray album ever to hit the “Billboard 200” charts - quite a feat for an independent label blues release, and noteworthy enough to secure a major label deal for [...]
Most of Chess Records' Real Folk Blues albums were compilations of singles recorded over a span of years (in Wolf's case, from 1956 to 1965). This album did not fit the usual definitions of “folk [...]
Bukka White's 1940 session for producer Lester Melrose in Chicago is regarded as one of the pinnacles of blues recording history. The 12 tracks from that two-day session, along with two songs from a 1937 [...]
As a portrait of the down-and-out, street-level life of a junkie in 1958, Blues From the Gutter must have had quite an appeal to the album-buying public of the beat poets' era. Dupree's moods actually [...]
The quintessential album of the urban blues experience may well be 'Live at the Regal.' Recorded November 21, 1964, at Chicago's leading African American showcase, the album not only captures B.B. King in all his [...]
Driving Wheel was Little Jr. Parker's first full-length LP, released on the Houston-based Duke label at the height of Parker's popularity in 1962, when he was ranked in the top echelon of blues artists, along [...]
Strong Persuader was a breakthrough album both for Robert Cray and the blues, and its success is often cited as one of the key forces in reviving interest in the blues in the 1980s. The [...]