Bessie Smith The Essential Bessie Smith

The first popular jazz singer to move audiences with the intense, personal feeling of classic blues, Billie Holiday changed the art of American pop vocals forever. More than a half-century after her death, it's difficult to believe that prior to her emergence, jazz and pop singers were tied to the Tin Pan Alley tradition and rarely personalized their songs; only blues singers like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey actually gave the impression they had lived through what they were singing.

The Blues Masters series, much to Rhino`s credit, adopts an expansive definition of blues, allowing the likes of Count Basie, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Muddy Waters and even Louis Prima admission. There is none of the purist`s quibbling over strict 12-bar form or the relative significance of prewar and postwar styles.
What Rhino delivers instead is the blues in all its myriad guises. This music is old and new, black and white, acoustic and electric, folksy and jazzy, performed by women and men, and yet it is all still blues at its core.

Here are 3CDs of essential blues from the legendary artists who started it all, Featuring 60 classic recordings grom the likes of John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Howlin' Wolf, Lowell Fulson, Leadbelly, Robert Johnson, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington and many, many more.

Big Maybelle - The Complete OKeh Sessions 1952-1955 (1994) {Epic EK 53417}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 307 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 171 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 52 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1952-55, 1994 Epic / Legacy / Sony Music | EK 53417
Blues / East Coast Blues / Jump Blues / Soul Blues

These 26 essential tracks that Big Maybelle recorded for Okeh records are the real McCoy. Her reputation as one of the most exciting female vocalists to ever sing the Blues is more than ably demonstrated here, and these tracks are the purest Blues she ever recorded. Unlike some of her pop and jazz records - and Big Maybelle excelled in all of these styles - almost all of these tracks have the distinction of bearing the unmistakable stamp of pure Blues music, something that is mighty rare among female practitioners of the art. The music world abounds with many female vocalists who were labeled "Blues" singers without their ever fully indulging in the form. While Big Maybelle herself made some excellent R & B and even pop records, when she sang the Blues, she went all the way, as some others did not. And if you want proof, one listen to these excellent tracks is all you will need.