Definative Blues Collection

Well, could you not put some vinyl in there?

I don't know if I could come up with ten off the top of me head, but the Beano album is essential.

You might wish to consider 'A Hard Road' by John Mayal as well.

Lots of stuff on the Chess Label has turned out very well as well.

What kind of blues are you into?

I am kind of main stream in that sense, more rythm and Blues as apposed to the real heavy stuff.

Start with Robert Johnson (the complete recordings are on a 2 disk set) and a Charley Patton compilation (there are several, all great, the best is Revenant's expensive but beautiful collected works). Can't go wrong.

-- Ian

Oooh, this is a tough one. Probably impossible to put together the definitive collection in only 10. However, if you wanted something that represents the best of what's on offer, here's a starter...

Robert Johnson "The Complete Recordings"
Muddy Waters "His Best: 1947 to 1955"
BB King "Live in Cook County Jail"
Howlin Wolf "His Best Chess 50th Anniversary Edition"
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee "Midnight Special"
Stevie Ray Vaughn "Texas Flood"
Mississippi John Hurt "Rediscovered"
Albert King "Born Under a Bad Sign"
RL Burnside "Burnside on Burnside"
North Mississippi Allstars "Shake Hands with Shorty"
Johnny Winter "Nothin' But the Blues"

Oh dear, that's 11. Sorry.

Dave

Tough question, where to start....
John Lee Hooker, Roy Buchanan, Fleetwood Mac, Canned Heat, Buddy Guy, all come to mind.

Had another thought, There are many very good compilations of the blues. I really like the 4 discs set of best of chess records (not sure of the title), some alligator record collections are very nice too, but with few real big names. Probably the best thing to do is decide your favorite artists and get a compiliation of each one (this is probably an ugly solution for a blues purist). Get some collections from the library or samples from the library to decide who you really like (or what blues styles you like), and then this forum would tell you what the best is from that artist.
addendum to my earlier post:
add Freddy King and Willie Dixo

...have some excellent anthologies containing studio and live performances of their artists. Highly recommended.

Alligator Records

Cheers

Keith.

As has already been said it depends on what you enjoy and my interpretation will certainly be too elastic for some tastes.

But FWIW I can recall these without checking my collection and they hit my CDP regularly.

BB King - Blues Summit
John Lee Hooker - The Healer
Eric Clapton - From the Cradle
The Blues band - Brassed Up
Stevie ray Vaughan - Couldn't stand the Weather
Larry McRay - Ambition
Robert Cray - Bad Influence
Allman Bros - 1st album
Peter Green - Robert Johnson Songbook
ZZ Top - Tejas

Despite the v high regard in which it is clearly held I can't say the Beano album does it for me.

If you're talking anthologies rather than individual albums, the Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon Chess Boxes would be a good place to start. Between them, they wrote half of the songs you'll find on blues albums by other people.

The Rounder Records website here is well worth exploring too. They have lots of well-known blues men on their artists list and lots of excellent compilation CDs (most with extensive sound samples).
This site is particularly interesting if you want to dig into other varieties of american roots music (e.g. zydeco, cajun, bluegrass etc.).
Amazon are still offering the 4CD box-set Roots Music for £11.99 - an excellent buy and recommended by many contributors to this forum.

David

Tristram

If you are new to blues, you may have some trouble searching for the "Beano" album as it is actually called John Mayall; Bluesbreakers, with Eric Clapton. The Beano is only featured as part of the cover photo.
It is much revered as it marked the start of the British blues guitar fashion, and acted as a "primer" for many fledgling blues guitarists. I would suggest it still has some merit in that role alone. John Mayall's singing is truly awful.

malcolm

[This message was edited by Rockingdoc on FRIDAY 21 February 2003 at 14:09.]

Anything by Walter Trout, Muddy Waters and Stevie Ray is good and BB King of course. Don't forget Gary Moore as well.

Regards

Stewart

Thanks for the thoughtful replies.

Gary, no records because I am one of those without the ability to play them.

Dozy, if you had to pick a specific cd for each artist, what would they be?

tw

My comments may well be unpopular here but I am going to express an opinion--that's all--not "the truth".

I suggest you seek out ONLY albums recorded before, say, 1975. You could actually probably move that date back to 1970 and not miss much, perhaps even move it back to 1965 and still have 80% of what is worth listening to. Forget anything recorded by "the greats" after 1975--BB started to get too overproduced and sound too slick, same with J.Lee Hooker. Slickness is DEATH to the blues (IMHO) as is imitation. yes, imitation is a sincere form of flattery but we're talking about assembling a collection of music here, right? So I also suggest you pass on anything british (horrors! I'm including eric clapton and john mayall here!) and seek out the authentic U.S. stuff. Fortunately, many of the compilations noted above (the Muddy and Willy Dixon Chess boxes, for example) really have the goods. I'd also seek out the mid-sixties stuff by Bobby Bland on Duke. If I wanted blistering guitar the one exception to my pre-1975 rule I'd make would be to seek out some Stevie Ray Vaughn--one of the few artists of his generation to actually play with some feeling and authenticity and skill. Alternatively, you could stay with T-Bone Walker, Albert Collins and Freddy King and pretty much have the definitive foundation of what everybody else has been imitating for 40+ years.

Ok, upon reflection I can see I've been unfair here because my guidelines have left out such giants as Johnny Copeland and Johnnie Taylor who recorded many wonderful sides in the 80's and 90's. So take my comments with a grain of salt.

Hope I haven't hurt anybody's feelings here but I cannot help but feel a sense of wonder at the plastic artifice that passes for the blues these days. And the authenticity of the *real stuff* is, to me, a sonic repudiation of everything phoney.

By the way, avoid the current wave of "blues Stars" (who get nominated for grammy's and stuff), like the plague.

Markus

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It is just an opinion.
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interesting opinion and well thought out

Markus

An intersting post which got me thinking, my conclusion is that we need to take a some-what broader view of a musical genre those contributing to this thread clearly all love.

Although you do no use the term, What is imitation and what is "original" does rather depend on the point in time one is viewing from. All interpretations of the Blues are necessarily of their time for reasons of recording technology and many other factors. The history of the music naturally strecthes back beyond 20th century recording technology.

To my mind, your definitive recordings of the the pre-75 era are re-interpretations of what went before just as BB King's or John Lee Hooker's recent recordings are re-interpretations of earlier work or tailored to the tastes of the time. Those artists recording in the mid 20th century were fortunate to do so when techological and social factors drove the mass distribution of recorded music for the first time in human history.

Their recordings, whatever their artistic merit, are no more definitive than what went before (uncaptured or unmarketed) or what has followed since. They are simply those artists interpretations of the Blues.

In a musical form such as the Blues imitation or re-interpretation or whatever you want to call it is inescapabe, it comes back to what connects with you emotionally and what you enjoy.

Based on your comments I will explore some more pre-75 recordings, but my explorations to date put me in the post-75 camp.

One final comment, in terms of British Blues, my view is that the body of work (taken as a whole) put out by the Blues Band over the last twenty years stands comparison with almost anything.

I should have also said...

I am not saying that you should not buy or listen to Eric Clapton or John Mayall or Keb Mo or anybody else. But recognize it for what it is. It just seems to me that it isn't really "blues" but rather, it is popular music in the "blues form". Rather like the difference between todays crop of Jazz products as compared to the genuine stuff of the 40's through 60's. (and even in the 60's there was a lot of stuff that seemed to be motivated more by commercial interests than artistic ones).

Actually, I think that commercial elements have a major influence here and perhaps that is what I am objecting to. Certainly we all appreciate seeing blues artists receive the respect they are due, but take BB King for example--personally, I find his later music to be overly ambitious and that it looses an edge.

These are subjective opinions here, I know.

BTW, I appreciate the comment that everything is an imitation of an imitation of an original. I think there is truth in that and it is something worth exploring further. Ok, meanwhile I'll try to get back on track...I think perhaps a part of what I hear when I am listening to a vintage blues side is authenticity, whatever that means. I guess it means like the musician is not putting on an act. You know, if you hang out with ditch diggers and dig ditches for a while you'll end up walking and talking and sounding and being like a ditch digger. Same with playing the blues. But Robert Cray is not a BB King, nor is George Thoroughgood an Albert King. But Stevie Ray Vaughn is nobody else.

If I were going to recommend a couple of albums that have "the sound" I love, I'd nominate "Brass and the Blues" by Muddy Waters (yes I know the horns are overdubbed but it still sounds great), "Two Steps from the Blues" by Bobby Bland, John Lee Hooker Sings the Blues, 16 selections - Every One a Pearl, Guitar Slim "The Things that I used to do" and BB King live at the Regal.

Just more opinions.

Markus
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For anyone who is interested in the late 1960's "British Blues" movement I can strongly recommend a "2 albums on 1 cd" called "Me and the Devil/I asked for Water, she gave me Gasoline" on the Beat Goes On label (BGOCD332). Listed under Tony McPhee (of Groundhogs fame) on Amazon but it is actually a "various artists" comp. Worth buying just for the tracks by the late JoAnn Kelly.