A nice little collection of Bo Diddley's earlier work for Chess – put together in the early 70s, when Bo was in his Black Gladiator phase, as pictured on the cover – but featuring the rawer, rougher grooves of his initial recordings in the late 50s and early 60s! The Bo Diddley groove hardly needs an introduction from us – and the 24 tracks on the set are a perfect illustration of his blinding mix of fast rhythms, choppy guitar, and comical vocals – a sound that made Bo's work some of the most striking R&B of the time! Titles include "I'm Man", "Pretty Thing", "Before You Accuse Me", "Who Do You Love", "Hey Bo Diddley", "Say Man", "I'm Looking For A Woman", "Road Runner", "Cops & Robbers", "Story Of Bo Diddley", and "Hush Your Mouth". LP, Vinyl record album

A wicked reinvention of the sound of Bo Diddley – a set that electrifies his groove even more than before – and takes him into the same mix of funk and blues that Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf were exploring at the time! This album's right up there with the two Cadet/Chess classics by both of those artists – and is possibly even more messed-up too – with lots of jagged edges that push past the usual Bo Diddley groove – even though that classic sense of rhythm is still at the core to drive things along! We don't know who's playing drums, but they've got a nice heavy handed approach that makes these tracks really boom – and the set's in a massively funky style that's taken far too many years to be acknowledged for in the mainstream! Lots of nice ones, including "Shut Up Woman", "Funky Fly", "Power House", "Black Soul", "Elephant Man", and "I've Got A Feeling". CD

Bo Diddley we already love you – but this set gives us another reason why! Although Bo's probably best known for his classic R&B work of the late 50s and early 60s, but during the 70s he also managed to cut some massively funky albums for Chess – working in the blues revival/funk turnover sound that was pioneered in the Cadet Concept studios with some of the label's classic artists of earlier years. The grooves on this set are amazing – heavy funk all the way, and filled with a ripplingly strong guitar sound over heavy drums and bass – still handled with the same offbeat sense of humor that we love in Bo's older work, but retuned nicely for the hip heavy sound of the 70s! The CD features 20 tracks in all – pulled from 4 albums on Chess from the early 70s – and titles include "I Don't Like You", "Funky Fly", "Shut Up Woman", "Elephant Man", "Down On The Corner", "The Shape I'm In", "Bad Trip", "Hey Jerome", "Infatuation", "Take It All Off", "Bo Diddley-It Is", "Stop The Pusher", and "Hit Or Miss". CD

Funky Bo Diddley – one of Bo's key early 70s sessions for Chess Records – all of which have him stepping out in a much harder groove than years past! The sound here is relatively tight – with Diddley guitar and vocals on top of some larger arrangements from Bob Gallo – backings that mix together sounds from contemporary rock and soul, but always with an ear for the roots that Bo inspired in the first place – put forward towards a new generation with nicely kicking rhythms and really fuzzy guitars! The standout number here is the break classic "Go For Broke" – a drum-heavy instrumental that's worth the price of the record alone – and other titles include the great original "Pollution", plus versions of "The Shape I'm In", "Down On The Corner", "Lodi", "Bad Side Of the Moon", and "Bad Moon Rising". LP, Vinyl record album

A wicked reinvention of the sound of Bo Diddley – a set that electrifies his groove even more than before – and takes him into the same mix of funk and blues that Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf were exploring at the time! This album's right up there with the two Cadet/Chess classics by both of those artists – and is possibly even more messed-up too – with lots of jagged edges that push past the usual Bo Diddley groove – even though that classic sense of rhythm is still at the core to drive things along! We don't know who's playing drums, but they've got a nice heavy handed approach that makes these tracks really boom – and the set's in a massively funky style that's taken far too many years to be acknowledged for in the mainstream! Lots of nice ones, including "Shut Up Woman", "Funky Fly", "Power House", "Black Soul", "Elephant Man", and "I've Got A Feeling". CD

A wicked reinvention of the sound of Bo Diddley – a set that electrifies his groove even more than before – and takes him into the same mix of funk and blues that Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf were exploring at the time! This album's right up there with the two Cadet/Chess classics by both of those artists – and is possibly even more messed-up too – with lots of jagged edges that push past the usual Bo Diddley groove – even though that classic sense of rhythm is still at the core to drive things along! We don't know who's playing drums, but they've got a nice heavy handed approach that makes these tracks really boom – and the set's in a massively funky style that's taken far too many years to be acknowledged for in the mainstream! Lots of nice ones, including "Shut Up Woman", "Funky Fly", "Power House", "Black Soul", "Elephant Man", and "I've Got A Feeling". LP, Vinyl record album

A second pressing of the first Bo Diddley album – and a set that's fantastically twangy! We never tire of Bo Diddley's incredible guitar work – and you'll get plenty of it in this early album he cut for Chess, a tasty batch of 12 tracks, all original tunes with a stripped-down gutbuckety sound – rough, raw rhythms that feature plenty of Bo's gritty guitar over the top! The cover's got a picture of Bo holding a conventional hollow-body – nice and echoey, and a bit different than his later trademark square guitar – but the sound is still loud and proud throughout. Titles include "Bo Diddley", "I'm A Man", "Hey Bo Diddley", "Bring It To Jerome", "Say Bossman", "Diddley Daddy", "Hush Your Mouth", and "Who Do You Love". LP, Vinyl record album

A killer album of funky blues – recorded by Howlin Wolf during the period when Chess/Cadet was backing its older artists up with some of the newer funk musicians it had working in its studios! The overall sound works quite well – and although purists at the time moaned at the way artists like Wolf, Etta James, and Bo Diddley were being handled (especially with a "we know better than them" message on the cover like this!), the funky blues records from this time actually seem to be some of the most enduring from Chess – especially with younger listeners in the 21st Century! A big part of the success here goes to producers Charles Stepney and Gene Barge – who helped bring together a younger batch of players for Wolf's backing – including Pete Cosey and Phil Upchurch on guitars, Louis Satterfield on bass, and Morris Jennings on drums. Titles include "Spoonful", "Tail Dragger", "Smokestack Lightning", "Red Rooster", "Evil", and "Down In The Bottom". LP, Vinyl record album

Not as folksy as you might think from the title – thanks to a really powerful presentation by Sonny Boy Williamson! The style here has echoes of Bo Diddley or Jimmy Reed's sense of rhythm – a more upbeat and electrified Chicago approach than Chess was serving up a decade before – obviously influenced by the strength of R&B, but also still presented with a sound that's stripped-down and raw enough to be called blues. Players on the sessions include Matt Murphy and Luther Tucker on guitars, Willie Dixon on bass, Otis Spann on piano, and Lafayette Leake on organ – and titles include "One Way Out", "Too Young To Die", "Trust My Baby", "Peach Tree", "Down Child", "Bring It On Home", "Too Old To Think", and "Got To Move". LP, Vinyl record album

Four fantastic albums from Bobby Bland – all brought together in a single package for the first time! First up is Come Fly With Me – great work from Bobby Blue Bland – one of the few artists to rise up at the end of the 50s, and still find a way to chart their own path forward in soul with fresh material like this! Bobby's voice is still incredible here, and he works with production from Al Bell and Monk Higgins, the latter of whom arranged – in this cool style that's a bit like some of the territory that Tyrone Davis was taking on at Columbia Records during the second half of the 70s – fuller arrangements that bring some sophisticated soul touches to the music, but in ways that never lose the core of Bobby's genius! Titles include "Lady Lonely", "Night Games", "You Can Count On Me", "Love To See You Smile", "Come Fly With Me", and "To Be Friends". The next album is I Feel Good I Feel Fine – and Bobby Bland sounds pretty good too – thanks to arrangements from the great Monk Higgins, who does a perfect job of mixing Bland's trademark vocals with some sweet late 70s arrangements! The sound is upbeat, but never in a cliched disco mode – more in the territory that you'd hear Johnnie Taylor using over at Columbia Records – maybe a good comparison, given the Memphis roots that both artists shared – as both also evolved a lot to shift their sound with the changing modes of the time. And as with Johnnie, Bobby never loses the core that makes him great – as you'll hear on titles that include "Tit For Tat", "Soon As The Weather Breaks", "In His Eyes", "Someone To Belong To", "I Feel Good I Feel Fine", and "Little Mama". Sweet Vibrations is a real gem from the start of the 80s – arranged by Monk Higgins, who co-produced the set with Al Bell – a duo who'd already given Bobby some great records before, but who really knock it out of the park with this one. There's an extra-special quality going on here – maybe a slight reintroduction of blues roots, but still with a very contemporary spirit – set up to superb backings throughout. Titles include "Soul With A Flavor", "Hollywood Woman", "You'd Be A Millionaire", "Sweet Vibrator", "Special Kind Of Fool", and "A Real Woman Is What It Takes". Try Me I'm Real is record with a title that certainly fits the bill – as the amazing voice of Bobby Bland is as real here as it ever was, and blended with superbly soulful backings that take the singer's sound forward for a whole new generation! Some of Bobby's contemporaries were content to just stick in a straight blues mode – but Bland really grew and developed a lot as an artist, thanks in part to Monk Higgins and Al Bell – who are both at the production helm of the record, and balance the bluesy roots of Bobby with some richer soul backings that really knock the whole thing out of the park! We love Bobby Blue Bland during his early Duke Records years – but we love him equally as much for music like this, on titles that include "But I Do", "What A Difference A Day Makes", "Givin Up The Streets For Love", "A Song For You My Son", "Just You Just Me", and "Love Is Where It's At". CD

A record with a title that certainly fits the bill – as the amazing voice of Bobby Bland is as real here as it ever was, and blended with superbly soulful backings that take the singer's sound forward for a whole new generation! Some of Bobby's contemporaries were content to just stick in a straight blues mode – but Bland really grew and developed a lot as an artist, thanks in part to Monk Higgins and Al Bell – who are both at the production helm of the record, and balance the bluesy roots of Bobby with some richer soul backings that really knock the whole thing out of the park! We love Bobby Blue Bland during his early Duke Records years – but we love him equally as much for music like this, on titles that include "But I Do", "What A Difference A Day Makes", "Givin Up The Streets For Love", "A Song For You My Son", "Just You Just Me", and "Love Is Where It's At". LP, Vinyl record album

An incredible record from Bobby Blue Bland – and quite possibly the greatest one he ever made! The set's got an amazing something special that's unlike most other material of the time – a bit blues, but a lot of soul too – still with some echoes of R&B in the jazzier charts used for the backdrop, but presented with a rock-solid style that definitely points the way towards many sounds and styles to come in the 60s. And although Bland recorded many of these tracks as separate singles, there's a way they're put together here that makes the whole thing sound completely marvelous together – a really well-conceived track list that shows that Bobby's an even greater artist in the space of a full record. The arrangements are perfect, and Bobby's rough soulful voice is blended in this amazing way with killer horn arrangements that are far more sophisticated than most stuff that ever came after this, and which never get in the way, but only back up his deep emotion. The album's a motherlode of classics by the man, with gems that include "Two Steps From The Blues", "Cry Cry Cry", "I Don't Want No Woman", "I'm Not Ashamed", "Don't Cry No More", "Lead Me On", and "I Pity The Fool". And hell, even his version of "St James Infirmary" is pretty wonderful – something we never thought we'd say about that song. CD

If you ever doubted the blues chops of Canned Heat, take a listen to this album – as the group are joined by the great John Lee Hooker, who they let stand strongly in the spotlight and almost make the album his own! Previous sets by Canned Heat were already pretty darn great – a huge cut above blues-inspired rock groups of the late 60s years – but with Hooker in the lineup here, the sound gets even more raw and sensitive – so much so that a number of these cuts almost feel like some of the early Detroit 78rpm recordings the older blues musician recorded at the start of his career – hardly the watered-down blues rock you might expect. Titles include "Burning Hell", "Send Me Your Pillow", "Messin With The Hook", "Boogie Chillen No 2", "Peavine", "Just You & Me", "Whiskey & Wimmen", and "I Got My Eyes On You". (Rock, Blues) CD

Plenty of feeling here from Lurrie Bell – a Chicago bluesman who still holds onto the deepest sound of the scene from years back – especially the modes of that late 60s moment where the Chicago electric sound was really finding a wider voice! Bell's a bit too tight to be an early Chess player, but he's also got a rawer edge than some of his other contemporaries on different labels – a nice sense of grit in both his vocals and guitar work, given string support by a sweet small combo in a similar vibe. Titles include "Sinner's Prayer", "Blues Is Trying To Keep Up With Me", "Drifting", "One Eyed Woman", "Do You Hear", "Hidden Charms", and "Faith & Music". CD

A great set that may well be Big Maybelle's best record ever – really rare work that's quite different than her famous work of the 50s! The set was recorded in the Criteria studios in Miami – and it's got a cool southern soul sound that's part Bobby Blue Bland bluesy soul, and part Muscle Shoals funk – fused together wonderfully by arranger Eric Knight – who really has a great ear for giving Maybelle a wicked new groove! Maybelle's vocals are a bit deeper than usual – much more soul than the blues of a decade before – and tracks include "This Bitter Earth", "How It Lies", "Old Love Never Dies", "My Mother's Eyes", and "Love Careless Love". (Soul, Blues) CD

A record that's a lot more jazz than you'd guess from the title – a seminal set from the mighty Mel Brown! The "blues" here are hardly the familiar kind – and instead, the album really stresses the more soul-based sound of Mel Brown's work – thanks to some very groovy arrangements from Artie Butler! Tracks have a vamping, stomping sort of sound that's all-soul all the way through – using both Mel's guitar and some of his vocals to top some wonderful grooves from Artie – all done up in the best mix of soul jazz and more conventional vibes that was going down at Verve and Impulse in the late 60s. The tunes are all plenty hip too – with titles that include a great version of Tom Scott's "Freaky Zeke", plus Mel's own takes on "Son Of A Preacher Man", "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da", "Indian Giver", and "Set Me Free". (Jazz, Blues) LP, Vinyl record album