Super Session
Artist: Bloomfield-Kooper-Stills

As the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) had done a year earlier, Super Session (1968) initially ushered in several new phases in rock & roll's concurrent transformation. In the space of mere months, the soundscape of rock shifted radically from two- and three-minute danceable pop songs to comparatively longer works with more... Read More

Best of the Verve Years
Artist: James Cotton

Taken from the high-energy harpist's first three albums for Verve following his split from Muddy Waters (including the entirety of his fine eponymous 1967 debut), this 20-track anthology is a fine spot to begin any serious Cotton collection. In those days, Cotton was into soul as well as blues -- witness his raucous versions of "Knock on Wood"... Read More

Slippin' In
Artist: Buddy Guy
Community Score: 8.00

Whereas on 1993's Feels Like Rain Buddy Guy flirted with pop and R&B material, on Slippin' In, released one year later, he firmly reasserts his bluesness. From the very first track on, Guy lets his incomparable guitar loose. Throughout the album, he even experiments with Hendrix-esque effects on his guitar (perhaps at the prodding of... Read More

Don't Say That I Ain't Your Man
Artist: Michael Bloomfield
Bloomfield: A Retrospective
Artist: Michael Bloomfield
Live at Bill Graham's Fillmore West
Artist: Michael Bloomfield

This session from early 1969 featured Nick Gravenites, Mark Naftalin, John Kahn, and Snooky Flowers (among others), with cameos from Taj Mahal and Jesse Ed Davis, but it's clear from the opening notes who the real star is. Over the years, Bloomfield's titanic solos on "Blues on a Westside" have dwarfed the rest of the album in my memory, but the... Read More

You're Tuff Enough
Artist: Junior Wells

Another period of the veteran Chicago harp man's career that awaits CD documentation -- and one of the most exciting. Wells's late-'60s output for Bright Star and Mercury's Blue Rock subsidiary frequently found him mining funky James Brown grooves (with a bluesy base, of course) to great effect -- "Up in Heah" and his national smash "You're Tuff... Read More

Memphis Charlie
Artist: Charlie Musselwhite

The 14 performances on Memphis Charlie include some loose live sides and even a taste of slide guitar from Musselwhite. They're the work of a more mature artist than the brash kid on Stand Back. ~ All Music Guide, All Music Guide Read More

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

Hate to See You Go
Artist: Little Walter

Many blues fans identify this album by the scar on its front cover, and this doesn't mean that their copy got damaged lying around in the used-record pile. A larger than life black-and-white photograph of Little Walter fills the front cover with a visual impact that just cannot be matched in the petite world of compact discs. A jewel case would... Read More

Word of Mouth
Artist: Neil Merryweather
Blues with a Feeling
Artist: Little Walter

A 40-song double CD of material that didn't appear on The Essential Little Walter. Much of this is pretty rare, having only appeared on long unavailable singles or hard-to-get import LPs; almost a dozen, in fact, had not previously been officially released anywhere. Its appeal isn't limited to collectors, though. Anyone who likes a Little Walter... Read More