Adalen Riots (1969) Bo Widerberg, Peter Schildt, Kerstin Tidelius, Roland Hedlund

A psychedelic blues-rock outfit whose only album, 1969's Please Tell a Friend, has enough interesting moments, given the era's production quirks, to make it a highly sought after period piece, Sugar Creek originated when John Edwards (who later, as Jonathan Edwards, had a big hit in 1971 with "Sunshine") and guitarist Malcolm McKinney met while both were attending Ohio University. The two drafted in Malcolm's brother Tod McKinney and began playing music together as St. James Doornob, becoming the Infinite Doornob when Joe Dolce and Gary Gans came over to join from the Finite Minds. Moving east to Boston, the band built a fair following on the New England/New York club circuit, changing its name yet again, this time to Headstone Circus, and eventually settled in as Sugar Creek…

This 45-song, two-disc collection is subtitled "two decades of killer fretwork", and never was a set so aptly described. Chess Records was the home to seemingly every hot guitar player in the Chicago area, and many of them make their appearance here. Besides the usual label guitar hotshots (Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Buddy Guy, Lowell Fulson, Earl Hooker, Otis Rush, Robert Nighthawk, Little Milton), space is given to sideman work from legends like Hubert Sumlin and Robert Jr. Lockwood and great one-offs by lesser-known artists like Jody Williams, Danny Overbea, Eddie Burns, Joe Hill Louis, Morris Pejoe, Lafayette Thomas and others. It seems as if everyone recorded for Chess at one time or another, also explaining the inclusion of tracks by John Lee Hooker, Albert King, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Lonnie Brooks, Hound Dog Taylor and Elmore James. If electric blues guitar's your thing, then look no further than this fine two-disc compilation.