45 tracks on 2CDs! CD

A rich collection of work from this legendary Chicago bluesman – 36 tracks on 2 CDs, plus an oversized booklet with nice photos and notes! CD

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A great mix of blues and soul instrumentals from Chess – with a few nice rare cuts too! (Soul, Blues) CD

Includes 45 tracks on 2 CD's! CD

With 15 tracks including "Mad Man Blues", "Leave My Wife Alone", "Please Don't Go", "High Priced Woman", "The Waterfront", and "One Bourbon, One Scotch, and One Beer". CD

A killer collection of Howlin Wolf material for Chess records – with two unreleased tracks, some rare interview material, and other rare cuts too! CD

Classic Muddy Waters on Chess Records – 72 tracks in all, including 10 previously unissued tracks! CD

Features songs by Clarence 'Frogman' Henry, Dale Hawkins, Lee Andrews & The Hearts, The Monotones, Chuck Berry, Jimmy McCracklin, Buddy Guy, Betty James, The Sensations, and more – 16 tracks in all! CD

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Landmark work by one of the hippest gals on the Chicago scene of the past 50 years – blues singer Koko Taylor, an artist who also had a heck of a lot of soul as well! Titles include "I Got What It Takes", "Um Huh My Baby", "Twenty Nine Ways", "I Don't Care Who Knows", "Blue Prelude", "What Came First The Egg Or The Hen", "Insane Asylum", "Wang Dang Doodle", and "Bills Bills & More Bills". CD

A great overview of rare blues material from the legendary Chess Records – with 101 songs in all, including 19 previously unissued tracks! Music from Clarence Samuels, Andrew Tibbs, Sunnyland Slim, Muddy Waters, Little Johnny Jones, Memphis Slim, Howlin' Wolf, Eddie Boyd, Elmore James, Little Walter, Billy Boy Arnold, and more. CD

Not just rock and roll – but some rare Chess R&B, soul, and even a bit of rockabilly too! Excellent track selection – with some unreleased gems! Includes music from the Five Blazes, Clarence Samuel, the Dozier Boys, Bobby Lewis, Mitzi Mars, Bobby Charles, Chuck Berry, the Moonglows, Earl Hooker, Eddie Fontaine, the Moontones, Rusty York, the Gems, and more. (Soul, Blues) CD

Music from John Brim, Jimmy Rogers, J.B. Lenoir, Henry Gray, Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, Robert Nighthawk, Blue Smitty, Howlin' Wolf, Jimmy Rogers, Johnny Jones, and Buddy Guy. CD

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With 20 tracks including "Juke", "Sad Hours", "Blues With A Feeling", "It Ain't Right", "Tell Me Mama", "Mean Old World", and "You're So Fine". CD

Music from Muddy Waters, Little Johnny Jones, Jimmy Rogers, John Lee Hooker, Eddie Boyd, Little Walter, Lowell Folson, JB Lenoir, Bo Diddley, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin' Wolf, and Willie Dixon – 16 tracks total. CD

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A much earlier set of tracks than the first volume of Real Folk Blues from Howlin Wolf – mostly material recorded in the mid 50s, both in Chicago and Memphis – all with a really nitty gritty sort of feel! There's a rough and rootsy mode going on here – one that has Wolf's raspy vocals right up front in the lead, often supported by just a bit of electric guitar to emphasize the more sinister notes in the tunes. All tracks are originals by Wolf (aka Chester Burnett) – and titles include "Just My Kind", "I've Got A Woman", "Work For Your Money", "I'll Be Around", "You Can't be Beat", "You Gonna Wreck My Life", "I Love My Baby", "Neighbors", "I'm The Wolf", "Rocking Daddy", "Who Will Be Next?", and "I Have A Little Girl". CD

A fantastic set – 46 Chess Records recordings, including a few unissued titles! CD

Probably THE album you truly need to own from Koko Taylor – and a completely great one, recorded way before she'd become a cliched fixture paying the bills on frat boy tourist blues scene! The tracks here were recorded over a few years in mid-to-late 60s Chicago – mostly with production from Willie Dixon, who also co-wrote most of the tunes on the set! The groove is nice and gritty – electric Chess Chicago blues at it's finest, but also with a good sense of soul in the mix – and tracks include the fiery hit "Wang Dang Doodle", plus "Fire", "29 Ways", "I Don't Care Who Knows", "Nitty Gritty", and "Love You Like A Woman". Amazing stuff! CD

One of the biggest albums of Muddy Waters' career – a key crossover effort that has Waters as the "father" working with "sons" Paul Butterfield and Michael Bloomfield! The style here is still quite rootsy overall – and the double-length session features one album recorded in the studio, and a second done live at the Super Cosmic Joy-Scout Jamboree – key evidence of the growing hippie audience for blues like this! The core group features Waters on vocals with Otis Spann on piano, Mike Bloomfield on guitar, Paul Butterfield on harmonica, Donald Duck Dunn on bass, and Sam Lay on drums – and guest players include Phil Upchurch on bass and Buddy Miles on drums – each on one number. Titles include "All Aboard", "Mean Disposition", "Forty Days & Forty Nights", "Sugar Sweet", "Twenty Four Hours", "I'm Ready", "Walkin Thru The Park", "Got My Mojo Working (parts 1 & 2)", "The Same Thing", "Baby Please Don't Go", and "Honey Bee". CD

One of the biggest albums of Muddy Waters' career – a key crossover effort that has Waters as the "father" working with "sons" Paul Butterfield and Michael Bloomfield! The style here is still quite rootsy overall – and the double-length session features one album recorded in the studio, and a second done live at the Super Cosmic Joy-Scout Jamboree – key evidence of the growing hippie audience for blues like this! The core group features Waters on vocals with Otis Spann on piano, Mike Bloomfield on guitar, Paul Butterfield on harmonica, Donald Duck Dunn on bass, and Sam Lay on drums – and guest players include Phil Upchurch on bass and Buddy Miles on drums – each on one number. Titles include "All Aboard", "Mean Disposition", "Forty Days & Forty Nights", "Sugar Sweet", "Twenty Four Hours", "I'm Ready", "Walkin Thru The Park", "Got My Mojo Working (parts 1 & 2)", "The Same Thing", "Baby Please Don't Go", and "Honey Bee". CD reissue includes 4 previously unreleased studio tracks – "Country Boy", "I Love The Life I Live", "Oh Yeah", "I Feel So Good" – plus 6 additional live tracks! CD

2 Muddy Waters classics! On the first record, the Big Bill in the title is Big Bill Broonzy – a key influence on midcentury bluesmen all over the US, and paid tribute to nicely here by Muddy Waters! Given this tribute approach, the sound's a bit rootsier than some of Waters' other work for Chess at the time – a bit more emphasis on some of the acoustic elements in the instrumentation, and a recording style and approach to rhythm that's sometimes a bit more down home than postwar Chicago. Many titles are Broonzy originals, and titles include "Tell Me Baby", "Southbound Train", "Just A Dream", "Double Trouble", "I Feel So Good", "I Done Got Wise", and "Mopper's Blues". Folk Singer is a seminal album by Muddy – recorded in a style that's rootsier, and more down to earth than a lot of his other chess sides! Muddy's playing acoustic guitar, and the rest of the group features Buddy Guy, Willie Dixon, and Clifton James. The sound is really spare, and very moody – and tracks include "You Gonna Need My Help", "Cold Weather Blues", "Feel Like Going Home", and "My Home Is In The Delta". CD

Muddy kicks it live in the studio at Woodstock with a number of rock and/or blues luminaries in toe for this mid 70s gig – including the great Pinetop Perkins on piano, Paul Butterfield on harmonica, and Levon Helm on bass and drums! Interestingly, the set is much more of return to the rumbling, gritty blues and soul that made Muddy's name at Chess Records years earlier – and thankfully, not at all the crossover rock moment it could have been. There's a lot more Mud here than Water! Tracks include "Why Are People Like That", "Getting Down To Main Street", "Born With Nothing", "Caledonia", "Funny Sounds", "Love, Deep As The Ocean", "Let The Good Times Roll", and more. CD

Muddy Waters definitely put the "unk" in funk – although back in his day, the word meant something different than in the 70s! This set features some great late Muddy for Chess – produced in conjunction with Ralph Bass, Muddy's longtime associate in the studio, and done with a style that's a lot more rootsy than the title might imply! Instead of the electrified funky style that other Chess bluesmen were going for in the early 70s, or which Waters used on his late 60s albums, this one is a more back to basics set – with stripped down arrangements, and the kind of electric down homey feel that must have been big with the college kids. Pinetop Perkins plays piano on the set, and Carey Bell Harrington throws in a lot of harmonica. Titles include "Electric Man", "Trouble No More", "Unk In Funk", "Everything Gonna Be Alright", "Waterboy Waterboy", and "Rollin & Tumblin". CD

No bummer here, as the set's a really great one – filled with late 50s Chess Records sides by Sonny Boy Williamson – a number of which are previously unissued! The package does a great job of reviving this material for a newly-informed blues audience of the modern age – giving liner notes, recording details, and more – in addition to pulling together sides that hadn't appeared on album before. Titles include "Little Village" – which is 12 minutes long, and interestingly marked as "not suitable for airplay" – plus "She Got Next To Me", "Santa Claus", "Unseen Eye", "I Can't Do Without You", "Temperature 110", and "This Old Life". CD

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

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

Excellent 60s work from Little Milton – one of the few Chicago bluesmen of the 60s we actually dig! Milton always had a good deal of soul in his blues, and on these standout 60s tracks he really takes off – bridging worlds nicely, and crossing over to audiences who were digging sounds from Tyrone Davis and Johnnie Taylor at the same time. A fair bit of the tracks here have a nice funky undercurrent, and production was handled by Gene Barge, Billie Davis, and Calvin Carter – all with strong Chi-soul pedigrees. Titles include "Just A Little Bit", "I Play Dirty", "I Feel So Bad", "Grits Ain't Groceries", and "We're Gonna Make It". CD

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Classic blues harp and raw vocals from Sonny Boy Williamson – material recorded for Chess during the early 60s, and issued after his death, with a title that's certainly designed to catch the attention of the college kids looking for the "real" thing! The work here is really great – and often gets past cliches you might imagine of Chicago blues – thanks to a meanly gritty style from Sonny, but also some nice sue of organ and guitar to help vamp up the tunes a bit! Chugging rhythms drive along the best numbers nicely – and titles include "The Goat", "Decoration Day", "The Hunt", "Nine Below Zero", "Stop Right Now", and "Close To Me". 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

A split album of early recordings by Otis Rush and Albert King – both featured here in early Chicago sides done for Chess Records in the years before their bigger late 60s fame! The style here is mostly stripped down, but still pretty tight – not as rough-edged as some of their Chess contemporaries, and with a fair bit of electric guitar driving most tunes along with a nice little groove. Albert King titles include "Searchin For A Woman", "Bad Luck", "Won't Be Hangin Around", and "Merry Way" – and Otis Rush titles include "So Close", "I Can't Stop", "I'm Satisfied", "So Many Roads", and "All Your Love". CD

A really fantastic chapter in the career of the great Muddy Waters – a set that was initially dismissed as "inauthentic", but which has gone on to much-deserved fame over the years! Part of the genius here is the great Charles Stepney – that hip Chicago arranger who did so many wonderful things in the Chess/Cadet Records studios at the end of the 60s – which he definitely does here, as the gritty blues of Muddy Waters is mixed with a righteous current of 70s funky – with added guitar from Phil Upchurch and Pete Cosey, bass from Louis Satterfield, and organ from Stepney himself! The vibe is similar to the best funk blues sessions on Chess at the time by Bo Diddley and Etta James – and titles include "I'm A Man", "I Just Want To Make Love to You", "Hoochie Coochie Man", "Same Thing", "She's All Right", and "Tom Cat". CD

A seminal album by Muddy – recorded in a style that's rootsier, and more down to earth than a lot of his other Chess sides! Muddy's playing acoustic guitar, and the group features Buddy Guy, Willie Dixon, and Clifton James. The sound is really spare, evocative, and true – the album was quite probably titled to perk up the appeal to the strident college kids of the time, but the songs and performances are pure, honest, and rawly excellent. Tracks include "You Gonna Need My Help", "Cold Weather Blues", "Feel Like Going Home", and "My Home Is In The Delta" – and this CD edition has a 2 bonus tracks from slightly later session: "The Same Thing", and "You Can't Lose What You Never Had". CD

More classic blues than you could hope to shake a stick at – a 2CD set that features 50 tunes from Muddy's famous years at Chess Records! The set's brimming over with good stuff – classic and obscure numbers alike, going way past a simple "greatest hits" set. Titles include "Long Distance Call", "Evan's Shuffle", "Appealing Blues", "Rollin Stone", "Sad Letter Blues", "Kind Hearted Woman", "I Can't Be Satisfied", "Mean Disposition", "Good Lookin Woman", "Little Geneva", "Canary Bird", "Rollin & Tumblin (parts 1 & 2)", "Lonesome Day", "Stuff You Gotta Watch", and "All Night Long". 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 classic bit of indie blues from the Chicago scene – featuring some great players from the second generation after Chess Records stopped picking up the younger local talents! Magic Sam leads the group on vocals and guitar, and he's working here with Mighty Joe Young on guitar, Odie Payne on drums, and Mack Thompson on bass – all to craft a set of rough and ready blues tunes that would have played well on both sides of the tracks at the time. Titles include "That's All I Need", "All Of Your Love", "I Don't Want No Woman", "Mama Mama Talk To Your Daughter", and "Lookin Good", a nice instrumental! CD

A classic bit of indie blues from the Chicago scene – featuring some great players from the second generation after Chess Records stopped picking up the younger local talents! Magic Sam leads the group on vocals and guitar, and he's working here with Mighty Joe Young on guitar, Odie Payne on drums, and Mack Thompson on bass – all to craft a set of rough and ready blues tunes that would have played well on both sides of the tracks at the time. Titles include "That's All I Need", "All Of Your Love", "I Don't Want No Woman", "Mama Mama Talk To Your Daughter", and "Lookin Good", a nice instrumental! CD features a bonus alternate of "I Don't Want No Woman". CD

A great selection of work from Chicago blues giant Otis Spann – with three unreleased bonus tracks too! First up are five tracks from Spann's contributions to the album Chicago The Blues Today Vol 1 – material that just features Otis on vocals and piano, with some raw drums from SP Leary behind his lead – on titles that include "SP Blues", "Sometimes I Wonder", "Marie", and "Burning Fire". Next up is the full album Cryin Time – a real killer from the great Otis Spann – one of his tightest, funkiest records of the 60s – recorded in Chicago with a very Chess-like vibe! Otis is in the lead on piano and vocals – plus a bit of Hammond too – and the small combo backing is nice and tight, with Lonnie Taylor on drums, Barry Melton on lead guitar, and additional guitar from Luther Johnson to help fit into the groove! Lucille Spann sings on two tracks, but most of the energy comes from Otis' bold lines on piano, and his raw, soulful singing – on cuts that include "The New Boogaloo", "Home To Mississippi", "Some Day", "Twisted Snake", "Mule Kicking In My Stall", and "Blind Man". CD also features the unreleased tracks "My God", "Blues Jam", and "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands". CD

A sweet funky set from the mighty T-Bone Walker – a record that still includes loads of his wickedly sharp guitar lines, but which also gives him a tight groove with electric bass and great drums from the legendary Paul Humphrey! The bottom end here kicks as much as Walker's work on the top – which gives the record a cool crossover mix of blues, soul, and funk – not that different from some of the funky blues experiments going on over at Chess Records at the time, but with more of an LA twist. A young Tom Scott plays some great tenor lines on the record – and titles include "Vietnam", "T Bone Blues Special", "Sail On", "For BB King", "Cold Cold Feeling", and "Shake It Baby". CD features two bonus tracks – live versions of "Sail On" and "Stormy Monday Blues". CD

Some of the first recordings ever from Chicago legend Junior Wells – made for the small States label in the Windy City, many years before Wells exploded out with much greater national fame! The music here has Junior stepping into the same early electric space that Chess Records was cutting at the time – and given the presence of Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, and Willie Dixon on some of these sides – the group's also not far off either! Wells is the main star throughout, though – alternating bold young vocals and razor-sharp harmonica lines – in the company of players who include Louis Myers, Elmore James, and Muddy Waters on guitar, Johnnie Jones and Otis Spann on piano, Willie Dixon on bass, and Odie Payne on drums. Titles include "Hoodoo Man", "Tomorrow Night", "Eagle Rock", "Junior's Wail", "Throw This Poor Dog A Bone", "So All Alone", "Blues Hit Big Town", and "Lovin Blues". CD features six previously unissued tracks! CD

A fantastic document of the first-ever Ann Arbor Blues Festival – the start of a great event that would blossom into other styles of music in the 70s, but which stood as a strong blues-based event in its initial year of 1969! In some ways, the three day series of concerts is a roots answer to Woodstock – which took place just a few weeks before – as the festival featured a great scope of blues talents, from the rootsier sort of artists who were recording for labels like Folkways or Arhoolie, to some of the sharper modern talents rising to the top on Chess or Delmark! The package alone is almost worth the price of admission – beautiful photographs of the event, detailed notes, and the first-ever release of this music – which has sat in the vaults for decades, finally to see the light of day. Titles include "Dirty Mother For You" by Roosevelt Sykes, "So Glad You're Mine" by Arthur Big Boy Crudup, "Everybody Must Suffer/Stone Crazy" by Luther Allison & The Blue Nebulae, "Help Me" by Junior Wells, "I Wonder Why" by Jimmy Dawkins, "Too Much Alcohol" by JB Hutto & His Hawks, "So Many Roads So Many Trains" by Otis Rush, "Long Distance Call" by Muddy Waters, "Off The Wall" by James Cotton Band, "Juanita" by Big Joe Williams, "Jelly Jelly Blues" by Shirley Griffin, "I Feel So Good" by Magic Sam, "Call It Stormy Monday" by T-Bone Walker, "Death Letter Blues" by Son House, "Key To The Highway" by Sam Lay, and "Mojo Hand" by Lightnin Hopkins. CD

A totally great collection of rare material from the Bluestime label – a rare rootsy side of the Flying Dutchman imprint at the start of the 70s! Flying Dutchman is a well-remembered label for its rich array of funk and jazz titles – and although Bluestime worked in the blues side of the spectrum, most of these numbers are pretty darn funky too – thanks to some shared musicians and production talents with the main Flying Dutchman scene. In other words, the tracks are all pretty darn hip – and way way more than blues – really more funk tunes that have a gritty, raspy edge – like those rare few times when Chess Records' bluesmen got nice and funky. Titles include "I'm A Dues Payin Man" by Optis Spann, "Every Day I Have The Blues" by T-Bone Walker, "Plastic Man" by Joe Turner, "Love" by Harmonica Slim, "Paris Blues" by The Super Black Blues Band, "I Wonder Why" by Otis Spann, "Something So Bright" by Malcolm & Chris, "That's Alright" by Harmonica Slim, Chicago Charva Chapter" by The Plaster Caster Blues Band, "Disillusion Blues" by Leon Thomas, and "For BB King" by T-Bone Walker. (Funky Compilations, Blues) CD

A deep look at a blues scene that doesn't always get its due – music not from Chicago, Memphis, or various points south – but some nicely gritty tracks that were cut in New York during the postwar years! Despite New York's fame as a hub of jazz, soul, and other styles – the city also had a surprisingly strong blues scene in the 50s and 60s, which is when most of these tracks were recorded – music that's both in the electric modes that were showing up in other urban centers at the time, and also in some more traditional modes that were sometimes left behind in other cities – but which got a nice revival in New York, thanks to an interest in folk blues from the underground! Material here was originally recorded by a range of different labels – Old Town, Atlantic, Mercury, Prestige, Fire, Apollo, King, and Chess – and as you'd expect from Ace, there's also some unreleased material on the set, all presented with a great assortment of notes and details on every single track. 26 titles in all – with cuts that include "Bad Blood" by Champion Jack Dupree, "Step It Up & Go" by Blind Boy Fuller, "The Guy With A 45" by Allen Bunn & His Trio, "Stormy Monday Blues" by Bob Gaddy, "Kansas City March" by Wild Jimmy Spruill, "Four Women Blues" by Larry Johnson & Hank Adkins, "Idle Hours" by Lonnie Johnson with Victory Spivey, "Hard Times" by Noble Thin Man Watts, "Believe Me Darling" by June Bateman, "Security" by Tarheel Slim & Little Ann, "Jack That Cat Was Clean" by Dr Horse, and "Goodbye Kansas City" by Wilbert Harrison. CD

Some of the first recordings ever from Chicago legend Junior Wells – made for the small States label in the Windy City, many years before Wells exploded out with much greater national fame! The music here has Junior stepping into the same early electric space that Chess Records was cutting at the time – and given the presence of Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, and Willie Dixon on some of these sides – the group's also not far off either! Wells is the main star throughout, though – alternating bold young vocals and razor-sharp harmonica lines – in the company of players who include Louis Myers, Elmore James, and Muddy Waters on guitar, Johnnie Jones and Otis Spann on piano, Willie Dixon on bass, and Odie Payne on drums. Titles include "Hoodoo Man", "Tomorrow Night", "Eagle Rock", "Junior's Wail", "Throw This Poor Dog A Bone", "So All Alone", "Blues Hit Big Town", and "Lovin Blues". 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". CD

Man, with a square guitar and a badass style of presentation, it's hard to imagine how Bo could manage to NOT be in the spotlight! The album, like all his early Chess sides, is a real cut above the usual R&B set – with all original tracks, a really self-contained approach, and a no-nonsense approach to the groove that makes for no-filler, all unique Bo Diddley all the way through! Titles include "Craw Dad", "Love Me", "Limber", "Scuttle Bug", "Road Runner", "Story Of Bo Diddley", and "Live My Life". CD

Very early pre-Chess work from bassist Willie Dixon – heard here in his cool Big Three Trio – a hip jump blues group with almost a west coast vibe at times – presented here on some rare 78rpm material recorded for Columbia, including a few unreleased tracks! 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". CD

One of the most dynamic, most on-fire blues albums recorded during the 60s by Delmark Records – a set that bursts right out of the Chicago clubs with the guitar of JB Hutto firmly in the lead! Hutto's a killer right from the start – singing and playing with a ferocity that easily matches, if not beats, the bigger 60s names on Chess Records – and his style of inflection leaves us wondering how often he must have to change the strings, or maybe even his entire guitar! The album's got some great help in the small combo too – with Sunnyland Slim on organ and piano, and the unlikely Maurice McIntyre on tenor sax – blowing very well in a bluesy mode, before rising to later avant territory as Kalaparusha. Titles include "If You Change Your Mind", "Speak My Mind", "What Can You Get Outside That You Can't Get At Home", "20% Alcohol", "Hip Shakin", and "Send Her Home To Me". CD

Overlooked work from the Chicago blues scene of the postwar years – great material from an important early electric player – but one who never got the large exposure of some of his contemporaries on Chess Records! And yet, back in the day Robert Nighthawk was as important to the development of the Chicago sound as Muddy Waters – wonderfully skilled on the strings, and a hell of a singer too – with a deep baritone that often has a bit of a link to jump blues in the way that Robert delivers his phrasing – although the sound here is definitely Chicago blues overall! All numbers are small combo sides recorded for the United Records label – and players include Roosevelt Sykes and Bob Call on piano, Ransom Knowling on bass, and Jump Jackson drums. Titles include "Brick In My Pillow", "Seventy Four", "Crying Won't Help You", "You Missed A Good Man", "Feel So Bad", "U/S Boogie", and "Maggie Campbell". CD