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.
People call Chicago The Home Of The Blues. It may not be where the blues came from but it s where the blues came to live. It’s the place where Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Jimmy Reed laid down the songs that inspired the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds. The blues was the bedrock on which Jimmy Page created Led Zeppelin, the band that helped to change pop music forever. Chicago was the mecca for Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Magic Sam, Elmore James and a host of others who arrived in the city to make their fortune. The process had begun decades earlier, when record companies first came to town.
Paul Orta born in Port Arthur, Texas (hometown of Janice Joplin) was first influenced by Louis Armstrong at the age of 7. After 9 years of playing the coronet in the school band, Paul Orta quit because the band never played blues or Jazz. Within a half a year he picked up the Harmonica and in three months, he was in his first professional band (The Bayou Boogie Band) when he was 16. They played in Golden Triangle (southeast Texas) and Louisiana for three years.
EU-only four CD set that features 100 songs by the blues' biggest names from the genre's golden period of 1920-1962. This set contains the artists and songs that changed the musical landscape forever and influenced almost everything that followed. This set comes with a 28 page illustrated booklet including discographical information and an essay about this fascinating subject. The perfect snapshot for anyone interested in the genre or those wanting to know how modern rock music was formulated.
"State Line Blues" is the re-released debut CD from Lew Jetton & 61 South. Selected as a "Pick to Click" on XM Satellite Radio's Bluesville (channel 74 and channel 854 on DirecTV), and honored as the 4th best Independent Blues Release in the United States by Real Blues Magazine for the year 2000. "State Line Blues" features 9 Jetton originals among it's 11 tracks, including the fan favorites "Homegrown Tomato," "Getting Colder" and the title track, "State Line Blues." –by cdbaby
During the last quarter of the 20th century, and thanks largely to Eric Clapton's remarkable devotion to his memory, Robert Leroy Johnson posthumously became the most celebrated Delta blues musician of the pre-WWII era. Among numerous editions of his complete works and various anthologies that combine his recordings with those of his contemporaries and followers, J.S.P.'s The Road to Robert Johnson and Beyond combines many of his essential performances with those by dozens of other blues artists from Blind Lemon Jefferson and Henry Thomas to Muddy Waters and Elmore James. 105 tracks fill four CDs with several decades' worth of strongly steeped blues that trace the African American migration from the deep south on up into Chicago. This is a fine way to savor the recorded evidence, as primary examples from Blind Blake, Charley Patton, Son House, Charlie McCoy, Walter Vincson, Skip James, Ma Rainey, Tampa Red, Kokomo Arnold, Scrapper Blackwell, Leroy Carr, Lonnie Johnson, and Peetie Wheatstraw lead directly to early modern masters like Big Joe Williams, Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Bill Broonzy, Johnny Temple, Leroy Foster, Johnny Shines, Homesick James Williamson, Robert Jr. Lockwood, Snooky Pryor, Little Walter, and David Honeyboy Edwards, among many others.
The veteran vocalist wraps his suave, bottomless pipes around a well-chosen cross-section of covers, from Duke Henderson's jump blues "Get Your Kicks" and Johnny "Guitar" Watson's "I Love to Love You" to tougher straightforward blues originally cut by Freddy King, Guitar Slim, Jimmy Rogers, and Little Walter. A cadre of local session aces provides fine support, especially guitarist Steve Freund (who receives a couple of instrumental showcases).
Led by guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Donnie "Mr. Downchild" Walsh, the Downchild Blues Band is the premier blues band in Canada. Their saxophone-driven jump blues provided a major inspiration for Dan Aykroyd and the late John Belushi's Blues Brothers, who included Walsh's tunes, "Everything I Need (Almost)" and "Shotgun Blues," on their 1978 debut album, Briefcase Full of Blues. Formed in 1969 by Walsh and his brother, Richard "Hock" Walsh, the Downchild Blues Band endured continuous personnel turnover. More than 18 musicians came and went, including Gene Taylor, who went on to play with the Fabulous Thunderbirds, and Kenny Neal, who joined after leaving the employ of Buddy Guy and relocating to Toronto.