Takin' My Time
Artist: Charlie Musselwhite

Another highly talented and original ensemble -- Rose still on piano, with the Ford brothers (Pat and Robben), on drums and guitar, respectively. Again, Rose contributes an original departure, the solo piano ballad "Two Little Girls" -- and, as usual, it is to Charlie's credit that he welcomed such far-from-blues mood swings. Otherwise, the... Read More

His Best (Chess 50th Anniversary Collection)
Artist: Little Walter
Community Score: 7.00

As MCA reconfigures their Chess catalog, this 20-track single-disc compilation now takes the place of their original 12-track Best of Little Walter collection, a landmark blues album which had remained in print for over three decades. This collections reprises ten of those seminal tracks (leaving off the echoey "Blue Light" and "You Better Watch... Read More

His Best: 1956-1964
Artist: Muddy Waters

The first eight tracks of this 20-track collection date from 1956: "All Aboard," and featuring both James Cotton and Little Walter on twin harmonicas, "Forty Days and Forty Nights," "Just to Be With You," "Don't Go No Farther," "Diamonds at Your Feet," "I Love the Life I Live," "Rock Me," and the studio version of "I Got My Mojo Working." By... Read More

Buddy's Blues (Chess 50th Anniversary Collection)
Artist: Buddy Guy
Community Score: 10.00

As part of MCA's Chess Records 50th Anniversary series, this sweats his multi-disc retrospective, The Complete Chess Studio Recordings, down to a scintillating 15-track package and comes up with a bare-bones winner. There's loads of great guitar on classics like "First Time I Met The Blues," "Let Me Love You Baby," "Pretty Baby," "My Time After... Read More

His Best: 1947 to 1955
Artist: Muddy Waters

This entry into MCA's Chess 50th Anniversary Collection now officially takes the place of The Best of Muddy Waters as an essential first purchase in building a Muddy Waters collection. All 12 songs that comprise the budget-priced The Best of Muddy Waters are aboard, with eight more essential goodies from his first period of creativity, including... Read More

Koko Taylor
Artist: Koko Taylor

Straight digital reissue of Taylor's debut Chess album from 1969. Produced by Willie Dixon (who can intermittently be heard as a duet partner), the set is one of the strongest representations of the belter's Chess days available, with her immortal smash "Wang Dang Doodle," and the chunky "Twenty-Nine Ways," "I'm a Little Mixed Up," and "Don't... Read More