Blues — Recently Added

Amazing blues from the Georgia scene of the 70s – music that hardly feels like other versions of the genre coming out at the time – partly thanks to the raw recording quality of these tracks! Most of the music features just a singer and guitar – sometimes just one or the other ... LP, Vinyl record album

They're not lying with the title of this one – as the set's a killer collection of rural blues, with a legacy that goes way beyond the glory days of the genre in the 20s and 30s! The collection's a great one from Mississippi – exactly the kind of pre-LP material that the label's been ... LP, Vinyl record album

The first ever recordings of Mississippi Fred McDowell – the legendary Alan Lomax Recordings – recorded in Como, Mississippi in September of 1959! It includes songs that would be part of his canon for the rest of his career, mostly just his voice and guitar in raw, beautiful, soul-shaki ... LP, Vinyl record album

Compilation of rare country blues & gospel – from as far back as the prewar late 20s and up to the early 50s – beautiful stuff that sounds great on this vinyl compilation on Mississippi! Includes numbers by Gary Davis, Sam Hopkins, Bukka White, Willie Me Williams, Sonny Boy & ... LP, Vinyl record album

A beautiful compilation of lost blues from Mississippi Records – soul stirring number from Cryin Sam Collins, Lottie Kimbrough, Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joy McCoy, Little Hat Jones, Louie Laskie and more – recordings dating to the 1930s or earlier (we think) that are timelessly ... LP, Vinyl record album

Rootsy sounds from Henry Thomas – some great vintage recordings from the late 20s, with a feel that's quite different than more conventional blues from the time! Thomas definitely has a bluesy approach, but his use of the guitar is more strummy, almost folksy – as is his occasional ... LP, Vinyl record album

There's nobody like Bobby Blue Bland on Duke Records – especially during the early years that are featured on this collection! Bland came out of Memphis with a very unique, really amazing sound right from the start – an approach to blues that was a lot more sophisticated than most of ... CD

A really great moment in the spotlight for the legendary Chicago bluesman Otis Spann – an artist who often appeared on records by bigger talents of his generation, but didn't always get to shine this brightly on his own! The album's a very reverent session that has Spann's piano and vocals ... LP, Vinyl record album

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 ... LP, Vinyl record album

A great return to recording for Son House – a musician who'd stopped playing the guitar in the postwar years, but rose again to fame during the great folk blues revival of the 60s! The style here is every bit as classic as some of Son's earliest music – just recorded a lot better, too ... LP, Vinyl record album

They got the title right on this one – and the album's a smoking batch of tunes that captures Freddie in all his guitar-driven glory! The set features Freddie working with a tight Atlantic studio group that includes King Curtis, David Newman, James Booker, and Billy Butler – but the ... LP, Vinyl record album

Linsey Alexander carries the torch forward from a later generation of Chicago blues – not the down-and-dirty sound of the first arrivals in the city from the south, nor some of the first generation to get electrified – but maybe that later scene, when the music had really taken off, and ... CD

A Chicago blues gem – and some of the rarest material issued by King Records in the 60s – very gritty, earthy blues from singer Smokey Smothers – who gets plenty of help in the studio from a young Freddy King! Smothers has this raspy, almost casual style of singing – one ... CD

Very rootsy blues from the Motor City scene of the postwar years – work that almost sounds more Delta than Detroit – thanks to the primitive recording setting in the back of Joe's Record Shop! The work here is a really unique representation of blues in a northern setting at the time ... 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 ... CD

A pair of late 60s gems from the bluesy singer Junior Parker – back to back on a single CD! Like It Is features standout soul from the great Junior Parker – a singer who started out in blues, and already had a big legacy of music for Sun and Duke Records by the time of this Mercury set ... CD

Exactly the kind of a record to show why Skip James was really a cut above most of his contemporaries – a bluesman who works here with a sense of darkness and foreboding that really sets a chill to most of his tunes! There's less of the usual short-term sadness and smaller complaints of ... LP, Vinyl record album

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 ... LP, Vinyl record album

Muddy Waters' band meets the vocals and guitar of Luther Snake Johnson – in a sweet little set that's almost a double-header, given the talent on deck! The material's got a gritty feel that's right up there with Muddy's best for Chess – and the group features Mojo Buford on harmonica, ... LP, Vinyl record album

Gritty work from John Lee Hooker – a set recorded at the end of the 60s in Paris, at a time when that city was playing host to some of the hippest blues work of the decade! The style here is very much like John Lee Hooker of a decade before – simple, stark, and unadorned – with a ... LP, Vinyl record album