An unusual 70s release of work from Lightnin Hopkins – one with a cryptic photo of Hopkins behind bars! The material is most likely from earlier years, though – and it captures Lightnin at his best folk blues mode – just vocals and acoustic guitar on most numbers, the latter carrying equal duties on rhythm and some great solo inflections that break out between the lyrics! Titles include "Shiny Moon", "Big Mama Jump", "Rollin Woman Blues", "Automobile Blues", "Cairo Blues", and "Bad Whiskey". LP, Vinyl record album

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Great early work from Lowell Fulson – tracks recorded in the 50s for Chess Records – all in Chicago, and a fair bit more obscure than some of Lowell's better-known sides from the 60s! There's still a nicely gritty groove going on here – a style that's rooted in blues, but which often comes across with some of those more sly, more wicked moments that have always made Fulson one of our favorites – almost a slightly jazz or funk undercurrent at points, and a bit different than the regular Chess groove. Titles include "Do Me Right", "Trouble Trouble", "Hung Down Head", "Tollin Bells", "Low Society", "Check Yourself", "That's All Right", and "I Want To Know". CD

Some of the most hard-edged, gritty material ever cut by the legendary Otis Rush – work done on the Chicago scene of the 50s for Cobra Records – a company who were even more low-fi than Chess Records at the time! Otis' vocals are as incredible as his guitar – and the groups here are often nicely full – not large ensembles, but well-crafted combos that feature plenty of work from key contemporaries on the scene – including Walter Horton on harmonica, Lafayette Leake and Little Brother Montgomery on piano, Harold Ashby and Red Holloway on tenors, and Willie Dixon on bass. All these cuts were originally only issued as rare singles back in the day – and the set features 16 tracks that include "Groaning The Blues", "Violent Love", "Sit Down Baby", "I Can't Quit You Baby", "Checking On My Baby", "She's A Good Un", "Three Times A Fool", and "Love That Woman". LP, Vinyl record album

A very hip collection of work from the great Joe Turner – material that hasn't been easily issued elsewhere, and which fills in a key chapter of Joe's career! CD1 features vintage material, and is heavy on work from the postwar years, but before Turner rose to a second wave of fame on Atlantic Records – raw tracks recorded for labels that include Freedom and Stag, often with a style that's heavy on the jazzy arrangements that other jump blues artists were using at the time. CD2 features a variety of live recordings – from 1955, 1969, 1971, and 1985 – showing how strongly Turner held onto both his vocal powers over the years, and his ability to command a concert audience. Vintage cuts include "Still In The Dark", "Adam Bit The Apple", "Just A Travelin Man", "Jumpin At The Jubilee", "Around The Clock (part 1)", "Wine O Baby Boogie", "Christmas Date Boogie", and "Baby Won't You Marry Me". Live tracks include "Call The Plumber", "Chicken & The Hawk", "Honey Hush", "Mad Blues", "Chains Of Love", "Cherry Red", "Low Down Dog", and "Flip Flop & Fly". CD

2 blues classics from the great Howlin Wolf – back to back on a single CD! First up is the self-titled Howlin Wolf – a record that has Wolf tightening it up a bit from his earliest years at Chess, and moving into a groove that would forever make him one of the key artists to record for the label! The raspy, rootsy feel of earlier years is still in place – but the recording quality's a bit better, and the tunes have a more unified feel – thanks partly to some classic compositions from Willie Dixon, whose work makes up a very big part of the album! Tunes were recorded between the years 1959 to 1962, and brought together for the record – and titles include "Shake For Me", "Spoonful", "Going Down Slow", "Down In The Bottom", "Wang Dang Doodle", "Red Rooster", and "Tell Me". On Moanin In The Moonlight, a set filled with raspy vocals, Wolf sings in a way that definitely lives up to his nickname! The sound here is spare and stripped down, with very little accompaniment – usually just a bit of guitar, piano, bass, and drums – and sometimes not even all that much! Wolf's vocals are wonderful throughout – archetypal, but not nearly as cliched as some of his contemporaries came to sound – with a timeless feel that really holds up throughout. Titles include "Smokestack Lightnin", "No Place To Go", "All Night Boogie", "Evil", "I Asked For Water", "Forty Four", and "Somebody In My Home". CD

An excellent collection of rare work from the legendary BB King – a selection of 25 tracks from the vaults of RPM and Kent Records, 23 of which appear here for the first time ever! Some cuts are alternates, some are different versions of other recordings – and all are pretty darn wonderful – that sharp-edged BB King sound right at the start, before the famous Memphis powerhouse was recording for bigger labels in a more commercial setting! Lots of these cuts have a jazzy backing alongside BB's sweet guitar and raspy vocals – a mode that's similar to the mix of bigger band and bluesy elements you'd get on early work from Bobby Blue Bland – that great Memphis mix of modes that always makes us love this stretch in King's career so much. Titles include unusual versions of "Sweet Little Angel", "Catfish Blues", "Early In The Morning", "I Wonder Why", "Goin Down Slow", "Whole Lotta Meat", "Loving You In Vain", "Long Nights", "The Woman I Love", "Soul Beat", "Don't You Want A Man Like Me", "Be Careful With A Fool", and "Whole Lot Of Lovin". CD

Junior Wells was already a rising star when he cut this album for Delmark in the mid 70s – but the session's got a great back to basics vibe, one that's dedicated to Junior's home turf at Theresa's Tavern on the south side! The groove is great – with twin guitar work, by Sammy Lawhorn in one channel, and Phillip Guy in another – creating this feel as if you're sitting in the small club, hearing the guitarists trade licks back and forth while Junior sings and really wails on harmonica! Other players are great Chicago talents too – and include AC Reed on tenor, Charles Miles on alto, and Johnny Walker on organ and piano. Titles include "The Train I Ride", "What My Mama Told Me", "Key To The Highway", "Watch Me Move", "Someday Baby", "You Gotta Love Her With Feeling", and "Junior's Thing". CD features the unissued bonus track "Goin Down Slow". CD

Beautiful blues from Guitar Slim – west coast material from the mid-50s, recorded with some very hip backings! Slim's got a lean, mean edge – a style that's a bit similar to Johnny Watson in his early years, touched with some of the class of the R&B scene that was bubbling up in the late 40s in LA! The added instrumentation really makes the tracks great – not just the usual blues, but a more sophisticated mode with some nicely jazzy undercurrents. The set's very well put-together too – 26 tracks in all, with titles that include "Going Down Slow", "The Things That I Used To Do", "Well I Done Got Over It", "Twenty Five Lies", "Stand By Me", "Sufferin Mind", "You're Gonna Miss Me", "I Got Sumpin For You", "Story Of My Life", and "Our Only Child". CD

Rare work from the legendary Honeyboy Edwards – a blues guitarist who was a key force in helping the music make the transition to an electric mode in the 40s – but an artist whose talents were eclipsed by so many others he worked with at the time! This set's got a real back-to-basics vibe – Edwards captured in a spare setting, in a series of revival recordings done by Adelphi – with a focus on his vocals and guitar that take us right back to his early years working street corners and juke joints. Titles include "Bull Cow Blues 2", "Little Boy Blue", "Love Honeyboy Slow", "Don't Mistreat A Fool", "Howlin Wind", "Meet The Mornin Train", and "Hot Springs Blues". LP, Vinyl record album

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

A fantastic pairing of soulful talents – the legendary John Lee Hooker on the mighty Stax Records – in a set that's a real standout in the career of both! The vibe here is different than the usual sound of Stax – not a Memphis-ized John Lee Hooker, but instead the kind of stripped-down session that the singer had done for other labels in his early years – given a very faithful presentation here by producer Henry Stone (who himself might well be the third important force at work on the set!) Tracks are mostly short – apart from one eight minute jam – and Hooker's got that raw, raspy bite that still makes him one of the all-time greats. Titles include "Teachin' The Blues", "Goin To Louisiana","I Need You", "My Love Comes Down For You", "Please Don't Go", "I Just Don't Know", "Slow & Easy", "Two White Horses", "Feel So Bad", and "Grinder Man". 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

Tremendous work from the great Roy Brown – pulled from his groundbreaking years at King/Deluxe Records – and featuring very pure sound taken from original acetates in the vault! Brown is one of our favorite R&B singers ever – a vocalist with the range and skill of a jazz singer, but able to get down and dirty at a level that was a huge influence on later soul – and rock and roll as well. The package is way more than a greatest hits set, or just another Roy Brown collection – as it features close examination of his recordings in the years 1949 and 1950 – including work recorded in Texas, New Orleans, and Atlanta – and a good number of songs we'd never heard before. In the early years, King recorded directly to acetate discs, not tape – so these recordings are the purest, strongest versions of Brown's music you'll ever hear – served up with power that really beats some of the lower-end collections on the market – none of which feature this intense of a track selection either. Titles include "Fanny Brown's Wedding Day", "Special Lesson #1", "Love Don't Love Nobody", "Dreaming Blues", "Sweet Peach", "New Rebecca", "Butcher Pete (parts 1 & 2)", "End Of My Journey", "I Feel That Young Man's Rhythm", "Miss Fanny Brown", "China Blues", and "Cadillac Baby". (Soul, Blues) CD

Classic work from Slim Harpo – an album that kicks off with one of his biggest hits ever, and follows with plenty of great tunes as well! Things here are pretty rootsy and stripped-down – lots of spare, slowish rhythms (but a few funkier ones too!) – and instrumentation that's dominated by guitar and harmonica alongside Slim's vocals – all in a mode that's maybe a bit more vintage than his funky soul of the late 60s, but still equally powerful too! There's some great echoey production at points – almost taking a Bo Diddley tip, which makes for some really great sounds – and titles include "Snoopin Around", "Buzz Me Baby", "I'm A King Bee", "Moody Blues", "My Home Is A Prison", "Dream Girl", "Blues Hangover", and "Rainin In My Heart". CD

Great work from Smokey Wilson – a southern bluesman by birth, but one who relocated to the LA scene in the postwar years, where he really started to groove! This 70s album is a great example of the way that Wilson merged his roots with some of the soulful currents of the Cali scene – and like some of the other records on the short-lived Big Town label, an offshoot of Kent, the set's got a tight groove and a nicely urban take on earlier modes, but all without hitting any of the more commercial cliches that were creeping into electric blues at the time. Titles include "Go Go Train", "Tell Me Baby", "Straighten Up Baby", "I'm Gonna Put You Down", "I'm Gonna Leave You Baby", "Teach Me How To Love You", and "I Wanna Do It To You Baby". LP, Vinyl record album

Is it Fulsom or Fulson? We're not going to try and present ourselves as the authority, but what we can tell you is this collection features 27 tracks from the man, mostly raw blues, though a number of cuts are more produced, with full horn section and piano complementing Fulsom's guitar and vocals, and mostly issued as 45s, though many of the numbers were previously unreleased at the time this collection was put together in the mid 70s. The best numbers are stripped down, lean and raw – and titles include "I Want To Know", "Lonely Hours", "It's A Long Time", "Rollin' Blues", "Love 'N Things", "Love Grow Cold", "Hung Down Head", "Someday Baby", "I Want To Make Love To You", "Rock This Morning", "Rock 'Em Dead", 'Worry Worry", "I'm Glad You Reconsidered", "Blue Shadows", "Why Don't You Write Me" and "Blue Soul", plus loads more! LP, Vinyl record album

We know it's hard to think of anyone named Mildred as hip, but take it from us, the lady's actually a great singer with a deep capacity for jazzy blues and mellow R&B. These rare Savoy sides were cut during the years 1946 and 1947, and they feature great backing by pianist Ellis Larkin on nearly every cut, set up in either small combo or large group settings. Titles include "At Sundown", "Love In Vain", "It's A Woman's Prerogative", "You Started Something", and "Born To Be Blue". (Vocalists, Blues) LP, Vinyl record album

A really unique album from the great John Lee Hooker – done for the mostly-soul Wand Records label, and with a feel that's quite different than some of Hooker's other records! There's a distinctly jazzy undercurrent running through the record at times – sometimes with some moody, soulful elements bubbling underneath John's lead vocals and guitar on the mellow tracks – or at other times with a fuller sense of arrangements, a bit like you might find on 60s work on the Duke/Peacock label blues sessions. Hooker's in fine form throughout – and seems to open up nicely in the setting – and a few tracks are a bit more stripped-down, with a slightly rootsy feel. Titles include "Don't Want Nobody Else", "Crazy Mixed Up World", "Little Dreamer", "Seven Days", "Don't Be Messing With My Bread", "Storming On The Deep Blue Sea", and "Lost Everything". CD

Wild electric work from Les McCann – an album of free, open sounds that's quite a change from his styles of the 60s – and from most of his other work of the 70s too! Side one features an extended 26 minute track titled "The Lovers" – a slow-building number that has Les on sublime Fender Rhodes, as things build slowly with this really spiritual current that comes from the addition of Yusef Lateef on reeds, Cornell Dupree and David Spinozza on guitar, Corky Hale on harp, and both Bernard Purdie and Alphonse Mouzon on drums! The track is loose, but builds into some great funky moments – almost a keyboard version of electric Miles Davis at the time, but a lot more soulful. And side two continues the heavy keyboard vibe – with a killer remake of Les' classic "Beaux J Poo Poo" and a similar "Poo Pye McGoochie", both with the kind of choppy funky grooves Les laid down with Eddie Harris a few years prior! (Jazz, Blues) LP, Vinyl record album

An updated and superior version of the great Robert Johnson – The Complete Recordings, first issued as a 2CD set in the early 90s – featuring The San Antonio Recordings on disc one and the Dallas Recordings on disc two – eaching with alternate versions of many numbers. The alternate versions on each disc come are programmed at the end, giving it a better flow. 42 tracks on 2CDs: "Kind Hearted Woman Blues", "Tarraplane Blues", "If I Had Posession Over Judgement Day", "Stones In My Passway", "Last Fair Deal Gone Down", "Hell Hound On My Trail", "Milkcow's Calf Blues" and many more. CD