24 Bit Elmore James

Luke Elliot’s musicality is elegant and earthy. Some chase storms. Others weather storms & come out banged around, but wiser.

George Thorogood's (and Rounder Record's) first gold record. Thorogood & the Destroyers take on a wider range of tunes than on their blues-based debut, here adding their distinctive stamp, er, stomp! to Johnny Cash's "Cocaine Blues," and their hit rendition of the title tune, originally done by Hank Williams. Plenty of the hard blues stuff, too, including "The Sky Is Crying," Chuck Berry's "It Wasn't Me," and more.

Rockin' rhythm `n' blues in the style of Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker and Elmore James. This hard-rocking trio from Newark, Delaware started off playing for hard-core blues fans in small clubs in the '70s, became for a few years Rounder's biggest-selling act, and then moved on to the major labels, rock `n' roll megastardom, and all that. This is the album that started it all.

Bingo! is the Steve Miller Band's first studio record in 17 years. Thematically, it's a look back at the the electric blues and R&B that influenced him as a young man. Issued on his own Space Cowboy imprint, is also the final recorded appearance of blues harmonica great Norton Buffalo who passed away in 2009. Blues classics by B.B. King, Lowell Fulsom, Otis Rush, Howlin' Wolf, Earl King, Jimmy Reed, and Jessie Hill are here, along with three selections by contemporary bluesman Jimmie Vaughan. What all of these tracks all have in common is Miller's signature approach: he is a stellar guitarist who has no need to show off, a tight arranger, and an intuitive modern producer (with help from Andy Johns).

Having stayed out of the recording studio for four years prior to making his comeback album, 461 Ocean Boulevard, Eric Clapton returned to recording only a few months later to make its follow-up, There's One in Every Crowd. Perhaps be hadn't had time to write or gather sufficient material to make a similarly effective album, since the result is a scatter-shot mixture of styles, leading off with two gospel tunes, one a reggae version of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." Clapton and his second guitarist, George Terry, had written a sequel to "I Shot The Sheriff," "Don't Blame Me," which Clapton sang in his best impersonation of Bob Marley's voice. The other originals included "Opposites," whose lyrics were just that day, night, life, death, etc.

Back when music was only available on a vinyl album, the pure excitement captured on a live album was considered the ultimate document coveted by hardcore music fans. Clark continues this tradition by bringing the live album to a younger generation of music fans. Live North America 2016 was recorded absolutely live, with no overdubs. What you hear is how it went down.

George Thorogood's (and Rounder Record's) first gold record. Thorogood & the Destroyers take on a wider range of tunes than on their blues-based debut, here adding their distinctive stamp, er, stomp! to Johnny Cash's "Cocaine Blues," and their hit rendition of the title tune, originally done by Hank Williams. Plenty of the hard blues stuff, too, including "The Sky Is Crying," Chuck Berry's "It Wasn't Me," and more.

Rockin' rhythm `n' blues in the style of Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker and Elmore James. This hard-rocking trio from Newark, Delaware started off playing for hard-core blues fans in small clubs in the '70s, became for a few years Rounder's biggest-selling act, and then moved on to the major labels, rock `n' roll megastardom, and all that. This is the album that started it all.

A similar compilation was released in 2016 with the subtitle "100 Legendary Blues Classics", but somehow for a wide audience it went quite unnoticed. Perhaps that is why Demon Music Group this time decided to combine and produce a doublet again 100 Hits of The Blues and almost simultaneously 100 Hits Jazz (a bit late, and this rip will appear on the tracker). Yes, here mainly represented by a classic of the Blues. But what would be with modern Blues without this classic…

By the time Bobby Robinson inaugurated Enjoy Records in early 1 962 with his brother Danny, he was hailed industry-wide as a hitmaker, thanks to the many smashes he released on his Fire and Fury labels. Danny was experienced too, having run the Holiday and Everlast logos. Bobby's Midas touch extended to the advent of Enjoy, named after a joke book, Enjoy With Eddie, that he'd seen in a 125th Street shop. Its first release, tenor saxist King Curtis' instrumental 'Soul Twist,' sailed to the top of the R&B charts in the spring of '62.