Ma And Pa Kettle (1949) Charles Lamont, Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride, Richard Long

This superb five-disc box set gives a sweeping overview of the hugely influential music of blues legend Ma Rainey. Rainey was already a seasoned performer by the time she made her first recordings in 1923, and though she only recorded for six years she cut over 100 songs, many of which went on to become blues classics. Those tunes, including "C.C. Rider," "Bo Weavil Blues," and "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," are here, alongside dozens of other gems. Rainey ranged across styles and settings, from acoustic blues to jazz to jug bands, but her saucy, gritty vocal delivery remained a lynchpin. Given the historical impact of Rainey's output, the set's title - Mother Of The Blues - is no understatement…

A genuine tonic, this, and an auspicious start to Chandos’s ambitious Grainger Edition. Richard Hickox evidently has a deep affection for this intoxicatingly colourful repertoire and he draws a consistently alert and superbly stylish response from the BBC Philharmonic.

We switch from London to Denmark for this volume. Father and Daughter intricately mixes many solo voices and choir. The gaunt Kleine Variationen-forme is followed by the touching Song of Värmeland for choir. To a Nordic Princess is a lavishly grandiloquent piece first performed in the Hollywood Bowl as a love gift for his soon-to-be bride, Ella Ström. It verges on Richard Strauss at times. He was not averse to Strauss and wrote a piano Ramble on Rosenkavalier. There is an oddly subdued Stalt Vesselil. The very short choir piece Dalvisa is barely heard – a hummed vocalise. After such sensitivity comes the cheery The Crew of the Long Serpent.