Hill Street Blues

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.

Covering over 50 years of Louis Armstrong's career, this three-CD set from the Verve archives starts in the juke joints and speakeasies of the '20s and ends up documenting his pop hits of the '60s. Chronicling the achievements of a prolific and diverse performer of Anderson's caliber is difficult, but this release gives a strong, broad overview of one of the great pioneers of jazz…

Scottish guitarist, singer and songwriter. Rafferty was best known for his solo hits "Baker Street", "Right Down the Line" and, with the band Stealers Wheel, "Stuck in the Middle with You". Born into a working-class family in Paisley (Scotland), his mother taught him both Irish and Scottish folk songs as a boy; later, he was influenced by the music of The Beatles and Bob Dylan. He joined the folk-pop band The Humblebums - whose line-up included Billy Connolly - in 1969, but left in 1971 and recorded his first solo album "Can I Have My Money Back". Rafferty and Joe Egan formed the group Stealers Wheel in 1972, producing several hits. In 1978, he recorded his second solo album, "City to City", which includes "Baker Street", his most popular song and a radio mainstay…

Ben's great-grandmother was a vaudeville musician who toured with Al Jolson and in Medicine Shows. Her daughter was a very talented Boogie pianist who used to play for Ben when he was coming up. On the other side of the family tree, his grandfather, who was a Mississippi sharecropper turned Ben onto the sounds and culture of Mississippi and Blues in general. "When I was growing up there was only one kind of music in the house. Whether it was being played on an instrument or an old recording, it was Blues……