Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Artist: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Community Score: 9.33

Even after his death, Paul Butterfield's music didn't receive the accolades that were so deserved. Outputting styles adopted from Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters among other blues greats, Butterfield became one of the first white singers to rekindle blues music through the course of the mid-'60s. His debut album, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band,... Read More

Johnny Shines with Big Walter Horton
Artist: Johnny Shines

Calling an album one the best in this particular genre, Chicago blues, is a pretty big move. There are plenty of masters of this particular form, and the success of several different record companies recording the genre over the years has assured no shortage of material. Something just comes together splendidly on these sessions that elevates... Read More

Blues from Big Bill's Copacabana
Artist: Muddy Waters

Originally released as Folk Festival of the Blues on Chess's Argo subsidiary, the reissue gets the title right the second time around, a live document of a steamy night in a Chicago blues club. Chicago blues disc jockey Big Bill Hill intros the band and the assembled stars (one of whom, Little Walter, is nowhere to be found on this disc), then... Read More

More Real Folk Blues
Artist: Muddy Waters

The companion volume to the first Waters entry in the series is even more down home than the first. Featuring another brace of early Chess sides from 1948-1952, this release features some essential tracks not found on The Chess Box. With the bludgeoning stomp of "She's Alright" featuring Elgin Evans's kickass drumming and the moody introspection... Read More

The Real Folk Blues
Artist: Muddy Waters

Once Chess discovered a White folk-blues audience ripe and ready to hear the real thing, they released a series of albums under the Real Folk Blues banner. This is one of the best entries in the series, a mixed bag of early Chess sides from 1949-1954, some of it hearkening back to Muddy's first recordings for Aristocrat with only Big Crawford on... Read More

Down on Stovall's Plantation
Artist: Muddy Waters

These Library of Congress field recordings done by Alan Lomax from 1941-1942 feature Muddy with Percy Thomas on guitar, Louis Ford on mandolin, and Henry Sims on violin. Capturing Muddy in a string-band context playing his earliest repertoire, this is a major historical document. Unfortunately, the Universe edition of these recordings omits... Read More

Sail On
Artist: Muddy Waters
Hoodoo Man Blues
Artist: Junior Wells
Community Score: 10.00

One of the truly classic blues albums of the 1960s, and one of the first to fully document the smoky ambience of a night at a West side nightspot in the superior acoustics of a recording studio. Wells just set up with his usual cohorts -- guitarist Buddy Guy (billed as "Friendly Chap" on first vinyl pressings), bassist Jack Myers, and drummer... 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

The Legend -- The Man
Artist: Jimmy Reed

Jimmy Reed The Legend-The Man was originally released in 1965 on Vee Jay records and was reissued by Collectables in 2000. While it contains a number of classics, like "Baby What You Want Me to Do," "Big Boss Man," "Ain't That Lovin' You Baby," and "Bright Lights, Big City," what makes this reissue so compelling are the short interview sections... Read More

A Man and the Blues
Artist: Buddy Guy
Community Score: 10.00

The guitarist's first album away from Chess -- and to be truthful, it sounds as though it could have been cut at 2120 S. Michigan, with Guy's deliciously understated guitar work and a tight combo anchored by three saxes and pianist Otis Spann laying down tough grooves on the vicious "Mary Had a Little Lamb," "I Can't Quit the Blues," and an... Read More