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Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Best of the Blues The 101 Essential Blues Albums by Robert Santelli The Best of the Blues: The 101 Essential Blues Albums by Robert Santelli. Our philosophy is to present the artists that belong at the core of any good blues collection. We've decided (for reasons of space and sanity) to limit the choices to five artists in each of six categories: Chicago blues, classic country blues, female artists, harmonicas, pianos, and vocalists, along with ten general "gotta-haves." Because the guitar is such a dominant instrument in the blues, we've opened that category up to include a dozen players. (Obviously, not everyone fits neatly into one of these categories, so if you don't find your favorites in the category you expect, you may find them somewhere else.) While we've tried (with some exceptions) to single out one or two representative discs for each artist, we urge you to be adventurous and try their other recordings. Narrowing this list down to a workable number was quite a task, and we've decided (for now, at least) to pass over such first-rate modern blues revivalists as Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield, Johnny Winter, Bonnie Raitt, John Mayall, Robert Cray, Eric Clapton, Roy Buchanan, etc., in favor of the musicians who influenced them. Here are the categories. Select one to access that page of reviews. You'll also want to check out ROOSTER MUSIC: THE FIRST 2000 YEARS , 111 of the Rooster's core songs in blues, R&B, lost soul and gospel. These appeared in the Rooster Pickin's colums in issues #40-45. A couple quick notes: Several readers have pointed out to us that Gatemouth Brown's The Original Peacock Recordings is indeed available on CD from Rounder Records. Also, since this list was compliled, MCA released a B.B. King CD How Blue Can You Get? Classic Live Performances, 1964 to 1994 that provides one of the best recorded blues listening experiences we've had in a mighty long time. Had it been available then, it would have easily been one of our recommendations. Once you've absorbed all these and feel you're ready for some postgraduate work, pick up a copy of The All Music Guide to the Blues (Miller Freeman Books, San Francisco) for more than 2600 recommendations from other writers. Better keep a tight leash on your credit card, though. It's a big blue world out there. The Best of the Blues: The 101 Essential Blues Albums by Robert Santelli. Baraka, Amiri. Blues People: Negro Music in White America . New York: William Morrow, 1963. Barlow, William. Looking Up at Down: The Emergence of Blues Culture . Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989. Brooks, Lonnie, Cub Koda, and Wayne Baker. Blues for Dummies . Foster City, CA: John Wiley & Sons, 1998. Charters, Samuel Barclay. The Blues Makers . New York: Da Capo Press, 1991. Charters, Samuel Barclay. The Country Blues . New York: Da Capo Press, 1975. Charters, Samuel Barclay. The Roots of the Blues: An African Search . New York: Da Capo Press, 1991. Cohn, Lawrence, ed. Nothing But the Blues: The Music and Musicians . New York: Abbeville, 1993. Edwards, David Honeyboy. The World Don't Owe Me Nothing: The Life and Times of Delta Bluesman Honeyboy Edwards . Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1997. Evans, David. Big Road Blues: Tradition and Creativity in Folk Blues . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Ferris, William R. Blues from the Delta . Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1978. Garon, Paul. Blues and the Poetic Spirit . San Francisco: City Lights, 1996. Guralnick, Peter. Feel Like Going Home: Portraits in Blues and Rock 'n' Roll . Boston: Back Bay Books, 1999. Keil, Charles. Urban Blues . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966. Lemann, Nicholas. The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America . New York: Vintage Books, 1992. Lomax, Alan. The Land Where the Blues Began . New York: Pantheon, 1993. Murray, Albert. Stomping the Blues . New York: McGraw Hill, 1976. Obrecht, Jas. Blues Guitar: The Men Who Made the Music . San Francisco, CA: GPI Books, 1990. O'Neal, Jim, and Amy Van Singel. The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from Living Blues Magazine . New York: Routledge, 2001. Palmer, Robert. Deep Blues . New York: Penguin, 1981. Rowe, Mike. Chicago Blues: The City and the Music . New York: DaCapo, 1975. Santelli, Robert. The Best of the Blues: 101 Essential Albums . New York: Penguin, 1997. Santelli, Robert. The Big Book of Blues: A Biographical Encyclopedia . New York: Penguin, 2001. Tipaldi, Art. Children of the Blues: 49 Musicians Shaping a New Blues Tradition . San Francisco, CA: Backbeat Books, 2002. Titon, Jeff Todd. Downhome Blues Lyrics: An Anthology from the Post-World War II Era . Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990 [1981]. Tracy, Steven C. Write Me a Few of Your Lines: A Blues Reader . Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999. Wyman, Bill. Bill Wyman's Blues Odyssey: A Journey to Music's Heart and Soul . New York: DK Publishing, 2001. The Best Blues-Rock Albums Of The 1960s. Little did the bluesmen of the 1940s and '50s realize that the records they were making would be heard as far as halfway across the world, inspiring a generation of teenage musicians in England, and across Europe as well as the U.S. Beginning in the early 1960s, music from artists like Muddy Waters, Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Boy Williamson, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, and others could be found in the record collections of the young soul rebels who would invent the sub-genre of rock 'n' roll that would become known as blues-rock. These are the albums that have helped define the blues-rock sound during the 1960s. Big Brother and the Holding Company: 'Cheap Thrills' (1968) The sophomore album from this San Francisco band featuring the blustery vocals of Janis Joplin, a Texas-born tornado with blues in her blood who delivered a performance as emotionally powerful as anything you'd hear during the decade. Led by the hit single "Piece of My Heart" and including a powerful cover of Big Mama Thornton's "Ball and Chain, Cheap Thrills would introduce the world to the charms of Janis. Big Brother was a mediocre band at best and would struggle when Joplin left shortly after the release of ​ Cheap Thrills to pursue a solo career. Canned Heat: 'Boogie With Canned Heat' (1968) Inspired by the boogie beat of John Lee Hooker's recordings of the 1940s and '50s, Canned Heat's sophomore album defined the band's trademark boogie-rock sound with a set of mostly original material. Yielding a Top Ten hit in "On The Road Again," Boogie With Canned Heat also featured the Albert King-styled rocker "Amphetamine Annie" and the country blues tune "Whiskey Headed Woman," based on a song by Delta bluesman Tommy McClennan. Canned Heat would have other hits, and continued to slog their way through the festival circuit well into the 2000s. Cream: 'Disraeli Gears' (1967) Working with producer Felix Pappalardi, later of Mountain, Cream's second album not only defined the power trio aesthetic, but it also took blues into an entirely different realm altogether. Featuring Eric Clapton's blistering fretwork and the explosive, heavy rhythms of bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker, songs like "Strange Brew," "Sunshine Of Your Love," and "Tales of Brave Ulysses" mixed blues and psychedelic rock to devastating effect. Disraeli Gears would help launch the late-1960s blues-rock explosion, resulting in bands like Rory Gallagher's Taste, Gary Moore's Skid Row, and Leslie West's Mountain, among many others. Fleetwood Mac: 'Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac' (1968) Blue Horizon Records. When Bluesbreakers alumni Peter Green left John Mayall's employ, he joined bandmates, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood, along with guitarist Jeremy Spencer, to form Fleetwood Mac (also known, early on, as Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac). The British band's self-titled debut album would become an unlikely hit in the U.K., it's inspired mix of blues covers of songs from Elmore James "Shake Your Moneymaker"), Robert Johnson "Hellhound On My Trail"), and Howlin' Wolf ("No Place To Go") balanced by Green's maturing songwriting and considerable six-string skills. Jeff Beck Band: 'Truth' (1968) Less than a year after his departure from British blues-rock legends the Yardbirds, guitarist Jeff Beck formed the Jeff Beck Band with vocalist Rod Stewart and bassist Ron Wood, later joined by drummer Mick Waller. The four young men recorded this explosive debut album, Truth mixing the amplified blues of artists like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf with hard-rocking guitar and heavy, bombastic rhythms. Performances like the old Yardbirds gem "Shapes of Things," and Willie Dixon's "You Shook Me" and "I Ain't Superstitious" would drive Truth to best-seller status in the U.S. and set the template for much of the blues-rock (and heavy metal) to follow. Jimi Hendrix Experience: 'Are Your Experienced?' (1967) The stunning debut by the Jimi Hendrix Experience blew so many minds because nobody had ever heard anything quite like it. The album's soulful vocals; dazzling guitar pyrotechnics; solid, heavy rhythms; and brilliant original songs like "Foxy Lady," "Purple Haze," "Hey Joe," and "Fire" blended blues, jazz, soul, and psychedelic rock unlike anybody before or since. Although British and American releases included different songs – a situation since corrected by CD reissues of Are You Experienced? – one thing was certain on both sides of the pond. Jimi Hendrix was an artist of exceptional vision and ability. John Mayall's Bluesbreakers: 'Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton' (1966) One of, if not the most influential blues-rock album in the genre, Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton made a star of guitarist Clapton and cemented John Mayall's reputation as one of the forefathers of the British blues scene.

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