Guitar Blues

From the very start, blues guitarists forged an irresistible partnership with the slide, the sound of which epitomizes the very essence of the genre. This Rough Guide highlights the revolutionary players who pioneered this most captivating of styles during the early recorded heyday of the blues.

There's something fun and catchy about Michael Messer's eclectic album, King Guitar. Although the guitar featured on the cover is a vintage acoustic model, the music runs the gauntlet between down-and-dirty electric blues and quiet Delta slide. In a way, this mixture is sort of like an early Fleetwood Mac, with Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer bringing different blues styles together in one group. Messer, however, accomplishes all of this by himself. His acoustic slide guitar is the epitome of taste on the lovely "Crow Blues" and the happy, upbeat "Steel Guitar Blues".

This Muddy Waters set was recorded live in at the so-called "Jazz Jamboree" at the Palace of Culture and Sciences in Warsaw, Poland, in 1976 and has been issued many times under various titles over the years, including Floyd's Guitar Blues, Baby Please Don't Go, Hoochie Coochie Man Live!, I'm Ready Live, In Concert, and Live at Jazz Jamboree '76, among others. It's actually a pretty decent outing, and finds Waters working with what amounts to an all-star band with Bob Margolin and Luther Johnson on guitars, Pinetop Perkins on piano, Jerry Portnoy on harmonica, and a rhythm section of Calvin Jones on bass and Willie Smith on drums. It probably isn't an essential Muddy Waters purchase, but it certainly isn't a waste of money either, and dedicated fans shouldn't hesitate to pick it up under one of its various titles.

This compilation provides an interesting survey of 9 blues slide guitar players. Collected from various independent record labels and recorded over the period 1960 through 1993, all of these tracks have been previously released albeit on hard to find albums and CDs. It is great to have these tracks collected in one place.

Widespread respect for Earl Hooker, one of the unsung giants of the blues, is long overdue, and his rather limited available discography belies a great original talent. P-Vine Japan has attempted to put this right with Blues Guitar: The Chief and Age Sessions 1959-1963, an intelligent and authoritative collection of Hooker's early-'60s heyday, containing instrumental classics such as "Blue Guitar" and "Blues in D Natural." Both sound quality and packaging supersede all previous reissues of this work and, as such, this release becomes perhaps the cornerstone of any Earl Hooker collection.

West Coast vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter Robert Lucas forged a path for himself in the blues world after the release of his much-hailed 1990 self-produced debut cassette, Across the River. Based in Long Beach, CA, as a solo artist Lucas recorded for the Audioquest label out of San Clemente. He was also a member of the legendary boogie blues band Canned Heat, singing and playing bottleneck guitar and harmonica with the group off and on starting in 1994. Lucas paid homage to traditional blues but also carefully crafted his own singing and slide guitar style. These talents are on ample display on his Audioquest albums, including Luke and the Locomotives, Usin' Man Blues, Built for Comfort, Layaway, and Completely Blue, all released during the '90s, as well as latter-day Canned Heat albums on the Ruf and Fuel 2000 labels.