Fenton Robinson (1935-1997) was heralded as one of the most progressive guitarists in Chicago as well as one of the true intellectuals on the scene--a Tolstoy and Kafka reader also known as 'The Mellow Blues [...]
The Newport Folk Festival in Newport, Rhode Island, played a crucial role in introducing the music of Son House, Skip James, Bukka White, Robert Pete Williams, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Muddy Waters, Mississippi John Hurt, and [...]
Alberta Hunter was in the midst of one of the great comebacks in musical history when she recorded Amtrak Blues in 1978. Hunter, then 83, had become the darling of the New York jazz /blues [...]
Can't Get No Grindin' is, surprisingly, the only Muddy Waters album in the Hall of Fame that was actually recorded as an album, not a compilation of singles and older material. Chess veteran Ralph Bass [...]
Muddy Waters' legendary first recordings, cut at his house in Mississippi on portable equipment by a Library of Congress/Fisk University recording unit led by Alan Lomax and John W. Work III, were first collected on [...]
Muddy Waters' legendary first recordings, cut at his house in Mississippi on portable equipment by a Library of Congress/Fisk University recording unit led by Alan Lomax and John W. Work III, were first collected on [...]
P-Vine Special, the exemplary Japanese specialist reissue label, set the standard in blues box sets during the LP era with the Muddy Waters compilation The Chess Box, issued as an 11-LP set, with a bonus [...]
Mosaic Records has excelled in the compilation of high-quality boxed set reissues, primarily focusing on co-founder Michael Cuscuna's passion for Blue Note Records' vaunted jazz catalogue. Along the way Mosaic has also issued a few [...]
T-Bone Walker is best remembered as the father of electric blues guitar, the icon who paved the way for B.B. King, Albert King, Otis Rush, and the rest. His work on his 1959 Atlantic LP [...]
Muddy Waters' historic recordings for Chess and Aristocrat Records are so iconic within the framework of the blues that several 'Greatest Hits'-type Muddy albums from the Chess vaults have been inducted into the Hall of [...]