B L U E S M U S I C
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BLUES_circle The player always plays the latest playlist tracks. / A lejátszó mindig a legújabb playlist számait játssza.
1965-1975
Every Day I Have the Blues (Peter Chatman / Memphis Slim)
Sweet Little Angel (B.B. King / Jules Taub)
It's My Own Fault (John Lee Hooker / B.B. King / Jules Taub)
from Live at the Regal 1965
B.B. King is not only a timeless singer and guitarist, he's also a natural-born entertainer, and on Live at the Regal the listener is treated to an exhibition of all three of his talents. Over percolating horn hits and rolling shuffles, King treats an enthusiastic audience (at some points, they shriek after he delivers each line) to a collection of some of his greatest hits. The backing band is razor-sharp, picking up the leader's cues with almost telepathic accuracy. King's voice is rarely in this fine of form, shifting effortlessly between his falsetto and his regular range, hitting the microphone hard for gritty emphasis and backing off in moments of almost intimate tenderness. Nowhere is this more evident than at the climax of "How Blue Can You Get," where the Chicago venue threatens to explode at King's prompting. Of course, the master's guitar is all over this record, and his playing here is among the best in his long career. Displaying a jazz sensibility, King's lines are sophisticated without losing their grit. More than anything else, Live at the Regal is a textbook example of how to set up a live performance. Talking to the crowd, setting up the tunes with a vignette, King is the consummate entertainer. Live at the Regal is an absolutely necessary acquisition for fans of B.B. King or blues music in general. A high point, perhaps even the high point, for uptown blues.
I Got a Mind to Give Up Living (Traditional)
All These Blues (Public Domain / Traditional)
East-West
The raw immediacy and tight instrumental attack of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band's self-titled debut album were startling and impressive in 1965, but the following year, the group significantly upped the ante with its second LP, East-West. The debut showed that Paul Butterfield and his bandmates could cut tough, authentic blues (not a given for an integrated band during the era in which fans were still debating if a white boy could play the blues) with the energy of rock & roll, but East-West was a far more ambitious set, with the band showing an effective command of jazz, Indian raga, and garagey proto-psychedelia as well as razor-sharp electric blues. Butterfield was the frontman, and his harp work was fierce and potent, but the core of the band was the dueling guitar work of Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop, especially Bloomfield's ferocious, acrobatic solos, while Mark Naftalin's keyboards added welcome washes of melodic color, and the rhythm section of bassist Jerome Arnold and drummer Billy Davenport were capable of both the rock-solid support of veteran blues players and the more flexible and artful pulse of a jazz combo, rising and relaxing with the dynamics of a performance...
White Room (Pete Brown / Jack Bruce)
Crossroads (Ahmad Jamal / Robert Johnson / Traditional)
Politician (Pete Brown / Jack Bruce)
Born Under a Bad Sign (William Bell / Booker T. Jones)
from Wheels of Fire 1968
If Disraeli Gears was the album where Cream came into their own, its successor, Wheels of Fire, finds the trio in full fight, capturing every side of their multi-faceted personality, even hinting at the internal pressures that soon would tear the band asunder. A dense, unwieldy double album split into an LP of new studio material and an LP of live material, it's sprawling and scattered, at once awesome in its achievement and maddening in how it falls just short of greatness. It misses its goal not because one LP works and the other doesn't, but because both the live and studio sets suffer from strikingly similar flaws, deriving from the constant power struggle between the trio... And in many ways Wheels of Fire is indeed filled with Cream's very best work, since it also captures the fury and invention (and indulgence) of the band at its peak on the stage and in the studio, but as it tries to find a delicate balance between these three titanic egos, it doesn't quite add up to something greater than the sum of its parts. But taken alone, those individual parts are often quite tremendous.
I Am the Blues (Willie Dixon)
Rollin' and Tumblin' (McKinley Morganfield)
Blues and Trouble (McKinley Morganfield)
Hurtin' Soul
from After the Rain 1969
...The album mostly featured higher-wattage remakes of a lot of familiar repertoire, including "Honey Bee" and "Rollin' and Tumblin'," and also reintroduced Muddy's own electric guitar, which had mostly been unheard on his recordings of the 1960s (and completely missing from Electric Mud). And on the tracks where he does play lead, they're first-rate representations of his talent as it stood at the tail end of the 1960s, powerful and bold, like a king (or maybe even a god) surveying a blues landscape he had shaped, and ranging across it freely...
In From the Storm (Jimi Hendrix)
Hear My Train A-Comin' (Jimi Hendrix)
Ezy Ryder (Jimi Hendrix)
Red House (Jimi Hendrix)
from Live in Maui 1970
...However, they were seasoned pros, and Live in Maui presents in full the two sets they played before the cameras on July 30, 1970. These recordings document Hendrix and his accompanists -- bassist Billy Cox and drummer Mitch Mitchell -- as a well-oiled machine that delivered this material with a confidence and strength that also gave them room to stretch out without losing the plot. Hendrix delivers the guitar pyrotechnics that were his trademark, demonstrating his skills with a clear focus while using the swoops and cries of his Stratocaster to explore the outer limits of his songs. ..
Statesboro Blues (Blind Willie McTell)
Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’ (Gregg Allman)
Stormy Monday (T-Bone Walker)
from Fillmore West '71
Graham's left coast venue, the Fillmore West, in San Francisco in January of 1971. They were slotted between openers the Trinidad Tripoli Steel Band and Hot Tuna. These three shows are presented in their entirety in a four-disc set. Sourced from original two-track, reel-to-reel soundboard masters, they were held in ABB crew members Twiggs Lyndon's, Joe Dan Petty's, and Mike Callahan's closets for nearly five decades. They were then acquired by archivist Kirk West, who set the painstaking restoration process in motion... A revelation of these recordings is what they say about the Allmans' development and how much more polished they were just six weeks later, which doesn't diminish the earlier dates one iota: These performances are absolutely electrifying. They are wooly and intensely exploratory.
Used to Be (Rory Gallagher)
Whole Lot of People (Rory Gallagher)
There's a Light (Rory Gallagher)
from Deuce 1972
Released in November 1971, just six months after his solo debut, Rory Gallagher's second album was the summation of all that he'd promised in the wake of Taste's collapse, and the blueprint for most of what he'd accomplish over the next two years of recording. Largely overlooked by posterity's haste to canonize his next album, Live! In Europe, Deuce finds Gallagher torn between the earthy R&B of "Used to Be," a gritty blues fed through by some viciously unrestrained guitar playing... "There's a Light", too, plays to Gallagher's sensitive side, while stating his mastery of the guitar across a protracted solo that isn't simply spellbinding in its restraint, it also has the effect of adding another voice to the proceedings...
Accurately dubbed "the Queen of Chicago blues" (and sometimes just the blues in general), Koko Taylor helped keep the tradition of big-voiced, brassy female blues belters alive, recasting the spirits of early legends like Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Big Mama Thornton, and Memphis Minnie for the modern age.
One of rock's prime guitarists due to his uncanny ability to channel the blues-psych, Fender Strat-fueled playing style of Jimi Hendrix.
Swaggering Chicago blues harmonica player, a solo star who also worked frequently with Buddy Guy.
I'm a Little Mixed Up(Criss Johnson)
What Kind of Man Is This? (Koko Taylor)
Twenty-Nine Ways to My Baby's Door (Willie Dixon)
from South Side Lady 1973
Cut during the period when she was between Chess and Alligator, this 15-song selection, cut in a French studio and live in the Netherlands in 1973, is a potent set that finds Koko Taylor ably backed by the Aces, guitarist Jimmy Rogers, and pianist Willie Mabon. Lots of familiar titles -- a live "Wang Dang Doodle," studio remakes of "I'm a Little Mixed Up" and "Twenty-Nine Ways" -- and a few numbers that aren't usually associated with Chicago's undisputed blues queen.
Day of the Eagle (Robin Trower)
Bridge of Sighs (Robin Trower)
Too Rolling Stoned (Robin Trower)
from Bridge Of Sighs 1974
Guitarist Robin Trower's watershed sophomore solo disc remains his most stunning, representative, and consistent collection of tunes. Mixing obvious Hendrix influences with blues and psychedelia, then adding the immensely soulful vocals of James Dewar, Trower pushed the often limited boundaries of the power trio concept into refreshing new waters. The concept gels best in the first track, "Day of the Eagle," where the opening riff rockingly morphs into the dreamy washes of gooey guitar chords that characterize the album's distinctive title track that follows. .. One of the few Robin Trower albums without a weak cut, Bridge of Sighs holds up to repeated listenings as a timeless work, as well as the crown jewel in Trower's extensive yet inconsistent catalog.
What My Momma Told Me (Junior Wells)
Key to the Highway (Big Bill Broonzy / Charles Segar)
The Train I Ride (Junior Wells)
from On Tap 1975
Underrated mid-'70s collection boasting a contemporary, funky edge driven by guitarists Phil Guy and Sammy Lawhorn, keyboardist Big Moose Walker, and saxman A.C. Reed. Especially potent is the crackling "The Train I Ride," a kissin' cousin to Little Junior Parker's "Mystery Train."
