Martin Stokes

This five-disc, 116-track box set presents a sweeping history of the blues from its emergence in the early 1900s clear through to its various contemporary guises, and includes samples of country blues in all of its regional variations, as well as cuts from string bands, jug bands, jazz combos, gritty Chicago blues outfits, and a look at how rock artists like Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix incorporated the blues into their distinctive styles. Intelligently gathered and arranged, it treats the blues both from a historical perspective and from a working assumption that the form is still alive and well, continually morphing and transforming itself. There simply isn't a better or deeper survey of the blues on the market.

In an odd twist on the way these things usually work, this U.K. release is a CD reissue of the Bachelors' first American album, Presenting: The Bachelors, with the addition of seven tracks that appeared on non-LP singles in 1963 and 1964 in Britain. The format might be something of an excuse to round up and repackage the Bachelors' earliest recordings, but if that's what you want, this reissue does a good job of it. The Presenting: The Bachelors LP itself only differed a little from their first U.K. album, the big difference – and one that helped the quality of the record – being the addition of "Diane," a U.K. chart-topper that was by far their biggest hit in the U.S. (where it reached the Top Ten), and its follow-up single "I Believe."